Negar Omidvari
University of California-Davis, CA·Biomedical Engineering
About 10% of people who recover from COVID-19 develop long COVID, formally called post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC). Its symptoms affect many organs and can last months or years, and there are no proven treatments.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
long COVID
post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2
positron emission tomography
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Develop and validate a kinetic model of the T-cell–targeting tracer 18F-AraG across organs and tissue types, using dynamic total-body PET scans for more accurate measurement than standard static images.
- Identify body sites with abnormal immune activity in long COVID by comparing 18F-AraG kinetic measurements between symptomatic PASC participants and fully recovered COVID-19 survivors.
- Relate 18F-AraG kinetic measurements to blood markers of inflammation, immune dysregulation and blood vessel lining damage, using vascular permeability modeling to estimate tissue blood flow.
- Track changes in T-cell activation imaging with repeat scans at 4 and 8 months and connect them to each PASC participant's changing symptoms.
More about the research
Past studies mostly looked at blood markers or a single organ, so it is still unclear where in the body the immune system stays activated. This project aims to see immune activity across the whole body at once.
Why it matters
People living with long COVID have no effective prevention or treatment, partly because the disease's tissue-level causes are unclear. Whole-body maps of T-cell activation could point to where immune problems persist and how they track with symptoms, and the imaging and modeling tools could also be used for other post-viral conditions and could support more personalized diagnosis.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Thomas M Wisniewski
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare cognitive and neuropsychological performance yearly over five years among older adults with post-COVID cognitive symptoms, infected adults without symptoms and uninfected controls, using the CDR-SB and Uniform Data Set Version 3.
Nashaat Turkman
Stony Brook University, NY·Neuroscience
Optimize and automate the radiosynthesis of [18F]NT311D, a radioactive tracer that binds class-IIa HDAC enzymes, and test it with PET imaging in rats.
Alan C Seifert
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Neuroscience
Test whether neuroPASC, lasting neurological symptoms after COVID-19, involves vascular injury and inflammation, by comparing ex vivo MRI and histology from half-brains of 25 neuroPASC and 15 control decedents.
The school
University of California-Davis: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 647 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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