Why do some people get sicker than others when contracting COVID-19? That’s a question Guirong Wang, PhD is attempting to answer after being awarded almost half a million dollars by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Wang is a professor of Surgery and Microbiology and Immunology at SUNY Upstate.

Guirong Wang, PhD receives a grant from the NIH to study proteins that impact the severity of COVID-19 infection

     Wang plans to investigate the role that Human Surfactant proteins, specifically human SP-A and SP-D play in the degree of severity patients experience after being infected by SARS-CoV-2.

     “Human SP-A and SP-D are two important host defense proteins in the lung and other mucosal surfaces,” explains Wang. “Our previous studies have demonstrated these two proteins play a significant role in innate immunity against bacterial pneumonia and pneumonia-induced sepsis.” His lab’s preliminary data shows that these proteins can bind to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and inhibit viral entry and replication in lung epithelial cells.

     How these proteins exactly perform this function against COVID-19 and impact disease severity currently is unknown, and the hope is that if they can better understand how human SP-A and SP-D defend against infection, a therapeutic drug can be created to help treat specific variants of COVID-19.

     “The finding from this project will help develop new therapeutic drugs for COVID-19-induced acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which are the most common symptom in server COVID-19 patients,” explains Wang.

     Wang credits collaboration for the ability to continue this research; “We would like to thank our colleagues and collaborators for their support, especially for Dr. Thangamani setting up one BSL-3 laboratory in our institution, which was made available to win this research project from NIH.”

     You can read more about this grant here.