Home Department: Anthropology
Mentor: Shirit Einav (Medicine - Infectious Diseases and Microbiology & Immunology)

“High Resolution Study of COVID-19 Pathogenesis in Unique Human Lung Organoids ”

The mechanisms that govern differential COVID-19 outcome across genders, age, ethnicities, etc. are unknown. This project’s goal is to capture variation in the host response to SARS-CoV-2 in a unique human adult lung organoid (ALOs) model. The Einav lab will conduct a longitudinal study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in ALOs derived from several donors via virus-inclusive single cell RNA-sequencing. They will define the target cells of SARS-CoV-2 and monitor variation in gene expression between infected, bystander, and uninfected cells. To identify candidate host targets for therapy, they will identify genes whose expression is upregulated in correlation with viral RNA. This experiment will provide further potential therapeutic targets for addressing SARS-CoV-2 infections.