Webinar on using QIAGEN Digital Insights to understand coronavirus fusion and immune control

Zoonotic coronaviruses (CoVs) are significant threats to global health, as exemplified by the recent emergence of SARS-CoV-2. Host immune responses to CoV are complex and regulated in part through antiviral interferons. However, the interferon-stimulated gene products that inhibit CoV are not well characterized. In this webinar, we explain the findings of our recent study in which we identified LY6E as a broad coronavirus restriction factor. Our findings advance our understanding of immune-mediated control of CoV in vitro and in vivo and could help in the development of new strategies to combat infection by emerging CoV.

In this webinar, we will discuss:

• How interferon-inducible lymphocyte antigen 6 complex, locus E (LY6E) restricts cellular infection by multiple CoVs, including SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)
• Mechanistic studies which reveal that LY6E inhibits CoV entry into cells by interfering with spike protein-mediated membrane fusion
• How mice lacking LY6E in hematopoietic cells were highly susceptible to murine CoV infection
• LY6E as a critical antiviral immune effector that controls CoV infection and pathogenesis
• The results of our transcriptomic analysis of coronavirus infected mice
• How QIAGEN Digital Insights supported our transcriptomic analyses and enabled us to gain deeper insights into gene expression during CoV infection

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to get a more in-depth look at research that helps us better understand the immune response to coronaviruses.

Speakers Bios:

Prof. Dr. Stephanie Pfänder is a group leader at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), Department for Molecular & Medical Virology, where she studies emerging viruses, including emerging coronaviruses. Before moving to RUB, Stephanie worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Prof. Volker Thiel in Bern, Switzerland studying coronaviruses and other emerging viruses.

Dr. Daniel Todt is a postdoctoral fellow and virus informatician at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), Department for Molecular and Medical Virology. The focus of his research is on the transcriptional changes induced by viruses and the intra-host evolution of hepatotropic RNA viruses. Daniel Todt holds a Ph.D. in virology from the Hannover Medical School in Germany. He conducted research at the Institute for Experimental Virology at the TWINCORE - Centre for Experimental and Clinical Infection Research, where he also started his postdoctoral work, before joining Ruhr University.

Jean-Noël Billaud, Ph.D., is Senior Principal Scientist at QIAGEN Bioinformatics. Before joining QIAGEN Bioinformatics, Dr. Billaud joined Ingenuity Systems 2008 as staff scientist for in silico research program in oncology and infectious diseases. Jean-Noël Billaud holds a Ph.D. in blood cell biology from Paris VII and has done his postdoctoral work at the Scripps Research Institute (San Diego, CA) studying the impact of Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and Borna Disease Virus on brain cells. He pursued his career at the Vaccine Research Institute of San Diego, where he co-developed a universal vaccine platform using the core antigen of Hepatitis B Virus to target infectious (viral and parasitic) diseases and metabolic diseases and cancer.