Project Grant K08AI180347

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), provides $193,644 to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to conduct research on the impact of immune imprinting from prior SARS-CoV-2 variant exposure on antibody responses to emerging variants. The key objectives are to: 1) Test the effect of immune imprinting on neutralizing antibody responses in a humanized mouse model following boosting with the BA.4/5 Omicron variant, 2) Characterize the antibody repertoires of immunized mice to identify imprinting effects using single B cell sequencing and bioinformatics, and 3) Produce monoclonal antibodies to determine their neutralizing activity and identify epitopes associated with imprinting responses through structural and binding assays. The research aims to expand understanding of the immunological and structural basis of imprinting in SARS-CoV-2 and inform novel strategies for structure-based vaccine design to circumvent imprinting and generate broader immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants.