Multi-scale Modeling and Viral Pandemics (10/28/2021)

Contributors
Dr. David Forgacs, University of Georgia. Title: What a longitudinal sero-surveillance study taught us about SARS-CoV-2.
Institution/ Affiliation
Dr. David Forgacs, University of Georgia.
Presentation Details (date, conference, etc.)

October 28, 2021, IMAG/MSM WG on Multiscale Modeling and Viral Pandemics

  1. David Forgacs, University of Georgia. Title: What a longitudinal sero-surveillance study taught us about SARS-CoV-2. Abstract: As the fight against SARS-CoV-2 is far from over, serological surveillance is of utmost importance. In order to further elucidate the ways our immune system reacts to COVID-19, we established the SPARTA (SeroPrevalence and Respiratory Tract Assessment) program in order to follow a large number of people across multiple sites in the US. One year after its launch, we have amassed nearly 9,000 visits by close to 2,000 participants from several locations throughout Georgia and California. During monthly visits, saliva is obtained for virological testing and sequencing, serum is collected for the detection of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies, and PBMCs are banked for blood cell analysis. The focus of my talk is going to be what serological analyses have taught us about infection, vaccination, and a combination of the two. I will show antibody binding, as well as viral neutralization data to show how effective immunization with an mRNA vaccine is at eliciting a large antibody response, while infection is of much smaller magnitude but stays stable for a much longer period after infection. YouTube and Slides.
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.728021/full