UT professor awarded President’s Analysis Impression Award for key contributions to COVID-19 vaccine growth

Whereas a lot of the nation spent 2020 hoarding hand sanitizer and bathroom paper, Jason McLellan stored his head down and went again to his analysis. In spite of everything, he anticipated the virus virtually six years earlier, when he observed a 10-year recurrence sample in previous coronaviruses across the globe.

This month, McLellan received the College’s inaugural President’s Analysis Impression Award for his vital contribution to the COVID-19 vaccine growth.

 His lab produced a steady model of the virus’s spike protein – the mechanism that COVID-19 makes use of to enter the physique’s cells. When the spike protein is utilized in a vaccine, the immune system makes antibodies towards the protein, permitting it to shortly acknowledge and struggle off the virus if an infection happens to stop severe sickness. 

Many main COVID-19 vaccines, such because the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, use the McLellan Lab’s technological contribution.

“It was a bit surreal (getting vaccinated),” McLellan mentioned. “It was fairly cool to get vaccinated with one thing that the lab helped produce. Folks requested me to signal their vaccine card.”

Daniel Leahy, McLellan’s graduate faculty mentor at Johns Hopkins and a molecular biosciences professor at UT, recruited McLellan to UT from Dartmouth the place he initially researched the virus. Entry to a cryo-electron microscope and good barbecue sealed the deal, Leahy mentioned.

The microscope allowed McLellan to 3D print the coronavirus’ glycoprotein — the spike protein that permits coronavirus to enter bodily cells — which furthered the lab’s understanding of how the coronavirus is transferred.

McLellan invented coaching antibodies to lock the virus’ fusion protein collectively, which prevents the protein from altering shapes, stabilizing and finally transferring the virus.

The Analysis Impression Award Goes to analysis that modified lives or folks’s perspective of the world and features a $10,000 prize.

Throughout his time as McLellan’s mentor, Leahy mentioned he observed McLellan’s nature of pondering forward which displays his forecast of COVID-19. He mentioned from the beginning, McLellan was a pure.

“(I felt) delighted that one thing we’ve been engaged on for years has truly made an affect on human well being,” McLellan mentioned.