Research Driven by Curiosity: The Journey from Basic Molecular Biology and Virology to Studies of Human Pathogenic Coronaviruses

Perlman, Stanley

Until the early 2000s, coronaviruses were not considered important human pathogens. However, this changed with the onset of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002–2003 and the emergence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012. As in MHV-infected mice, clinical disease in both of these entities occurred as virus was cleared. Rapid progress in understanding these diseases and in developing vaccines and therapies occurred because of knowledge gained from studies of MHV and other animal coronaviruses. In one contribution, we showed that alveolar macrophages in the lungs contributed to poor CD8 T cell responses and that these responses were normalized if these cells were depleted prior to infection. Our approach was informed by previous studies showing the key role that T cells played in virus clearance in experimental MHV infections.