Overview

The emergence of more transmissible, lethal, and immune-escape variants has been a defining feature of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic over recent months.

Katrina Lythgoe will discuss the emergence and spread of a growing number of variants of concern. Fundamentally, any new mutation, or combination of mutations, arises during an infection. She will describe their work on the within-host diversity and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and discuss the implications for their understanding of how new variants of concern arise and spread.

Tyler Starr will discuss a high-throughput experimental platform to predict the impacts of all possible mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 RBD on key biochemical traits such as virus binding to cell receptors and antibody escape. For example, last summer this approach already showed that the N501Y mutation exhibited concerning traits, before this mutation became a key part of highly transmissible variants responsible for the fall and winter waves. This platform also enables the tailoring and design of antibody therapeutics in light of local surveillance of viral variation.