Webinar: Inborn errors of type I IFN immunity in patients with life-threatening COVID-19
Clinical outcome upon infection with SARS-CoV-2 ranges from silent infection to lethal COVID-19. Qian Zhang and her team identified autosomal-recessive or autosomal-dominant deficiencies of genes in the type I IFN circuit in 23 patients (3.5%) 17 to 77 years of age. She will show that inborn errors of TLR3- and IRF7- dependent type I IFN immunity can underlie life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with no prior severe infection.
Qian Zhang was trained as a pediatrician after she graduated from the Medical School of Fudan University in Shanghai. She joined Dr. Helen ’u’s lab at the NIH as a postdoc to be trained in scientific research in the field of inborn errors of immunity. Since 2017, Qian Zhang first joined as a visiting scholar but soon as a group leader at the lab of Prof. Jean-Laurent Casanova and Laurent ’bel’s lab, and focuses her research in human genetics of respiratory viral infections.
The webinar will be moderated by Jonny Peter. He is a physician, specialised in internal medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In February 2016, Jonathan was registered with the HPCSA as the first adult allergologist in South Africa, and is Head of the Division of Allergology and Clinical Immunology at Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town and the Allergy and Immunology unit, UCT Lung Institute.