The laboratory of Dr. Genhong Cheng in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics focuses on understanding the process of innate and adaptive immune responses in host defenses against bacterial infections, viral infections, and tumors.
Dr. Cheng’s lab has previously created a novel method of generating live, attenuated influenza vaccines with high efficacy and attenuation by combining genome-wide mutagenesis and in vivo growth profile screening. These viruses are 100x attenuated compared to wild type and can be tolerated in neonatal mice. This novel method of preparing live, attenuated vaccines could be applied to coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2. The preparation method requires no working knowledge of specific genes or their functions in the virus and therefore is ideal for expediting the design of live, attenuated vaccines against less understood or emergent viruses.
Link to Faculty website: https://www.mbi.ucla.edu/faculty/genhong-cheng/
Link to relevant cases: 2018-179