36th Annual - Mossberg Honors Symposium

The unprecedented current pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has accelerated research on the epidemiology and pathogenesis of this virus. As humans do not have pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2, there is an urgent need to develop therapeutic agents and vaccines to mitigate the current pandemic. The U.S. and the WHO have launched campaigns to develop and test therapeutic agents and vaccines on an unprecedented scale. To test these and other potential medical countermeasures, it is imperative to identify animal models for COVID-19 that provide measurable readouts for potential interventions. In my lecture, I will discuss some of the COVID-19 research conducted in my laboratory at Kansas State University, mainly describing preclinical animal models for COVID-19 and their use to inform public and animal health as well as determine the efficacy of therapeutic agents.