Scott Pegan
University of California-Riverside, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Some tick-borne viruses in the nairovirus group cause serious illness in people and livestock, and no licensed vaccine or preventive drug exists for any of them. The best known, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, is present across parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, and both the virus and its tick carriers have been appearing in areas where they were previously absent.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemistry
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever
nairovirus
bunyavirus
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2030
What they work on
- Define how non-neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against GP38, a non-structural glycoprotein of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, confer protection, using combined molecular, cell-based and animal approaches.
- Determine the protective contribution of antibody responses to the nairovirus nucleoprotein, the protein that packages the viral genome, as suggested by earlier replicon-particle protection studies.
- Isolate monoclonal antibody candidates from people who survived infection, screening for high efficacy and for cross-protection against related nairoviruses such as Nairobi sheep disease, Erve, Songling and Yezo viruses.
- Translate mechanistic findings on these two viral proteins into antigen and antibody strategies suitable for further preclinical and clinical testing.
More about the research
Related nairoviruses, including the agents of Nairobi sheep disease and the more recently described Songling and Yezo viruses, cause human or animal disease of varying severity with economic costs. Understanding which parts of the immune response actually protect is the bottleneck for developing countermeasures.
Why it matters
There is currently no vaccine or preventive treatment for Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever or other nairovirus diseases, which can be fatal in a large share of cases and also affect livestock. Clarifying how protective antibodies work, and identifying candidates from survivors, could support development of broadly protective antibody therapies and vaccine designs for patients and for regions where these viruses are spreading.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Test whether immune imprinting from an initial D614G-strain vaccination limits neutralizing antibody responses to Omicron BA.4/5 boosters, using controlled immunization schedules in humanized mice that generate human-like antibodies.
Justin Bailey
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
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Meghan Hermance
University of South Alabama, AL·Microbiology & Immunology
Characterize how severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) infects, spreads within and survives molting in Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks, including which tick cell types it infects across life stages.
The school
University of California-Riverside: 21 labs on PI Pages, $232M a year on research, 328 research doctorates a year.
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