CAREER: Assembly and Function of Viral Immune Complexes

题目：职业：病毒免疫复合物的组装和功能espi: Michael vaheyabstract该项目的目标是提高对免疫系统如何识别和响应病毒感染的理解。该项目将确定病毒的分子特性如何促进这种免疫反应，从而为公共卫生领域的进步铺平道路，从开发更好的疫苗到改进用于基因治疗的病毒载体。当病毒进入人体时，唾液、粘液或血液中的蛋白质会附着在病毒上并对其进行修饰。虽然已知这些修饰是重要的，但了解它们是如何建立的以及它们如何促进感染和抗病毒免疫的进展仍然具有挑战性。除了对研究生和本科生进行培训外，该项目还将与当地教师合作，开发课程并建立直观和引人入胜的可视化工具，以促进初中生和高中生对免疫识别的理解。本研究的一个中心目标是了解病毒分子组织的异质性和结合这些病毒的抗体如何导致具有广泛物理和功能特征的大分子复合物的形成。化学生物学、荧光显微镜和细胞工程的结合将用于研究病毒免疫复合物是如何形成的，以及它们如何在单病毒水平上与抗原特异性B细胞结合。该项目将确定病毒粒子的结构和组织影响抗病毒免疫的机制，为形成病毒粒子表面分子地形的进化压力提供见解。该项目的研究目标将与教育目标相结合，旨在通过教师-研究员伙伴关系和中尺度分子可视化软件，使6-12年级的学生了解抗病毒免疫和免疫识别的原理。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

PROPOSAL NUMBER: 2238165TITLE: CAREER: Assembly and Function of Viral Immune ComplexesPI: Michael VaheyABSTRACTThe goal of this project is to improve understanding of how the immune system recognizes and responds to viral infections. This project will determine how the molecular properties of a virus contribute to this immune response, paving the way for advances in public health that range from the development of better vaccines to improved viral vectors for gene therapy. When viruses enter the body, proteins present in saliva, mucus, or blood attach to the viruses and modify them. Although these modifications are known to be important, understanding how they are established and how they contribute to the progression of infection and anti-viral immunity remains challenging. In addition to the training of graduate and undergraduate students, in collaboration with local teachers, this project will develop curricula and establish intuitive and engaging visualization tools to promote understanding of immune recognition in middle school and high school students.A central goal of this research is to understand how heterogeneity in the molecular organization of viruses and the antibodies that bind these viruses leads to the formation of macromolecular complexes with a wide range of physical and functional characteristics. A combination of chemical biology, fluorescence microscopy, and cellular engineering will be used to investigate how viral immune complexes form and how they engage with antigen-specific B cells at the single-virus level. The project will identify mechanisms through which the structure and organization of virions influence anti-viral immunity, providing insights into the evolutionary pressures that shape the molecular topography of the virion surface. The project’s research objectives will be integrated with educational objectives aimed at engaging students in grades 6-12 with principles of antiviral immunity and immune recognition though teacher-researcher partnerships and mesoscale molecular visualization software.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.