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Dr. Tao, Mi-Hua

Research Fellow
  • 02-2789-9151 (L) (Lab) (Room No: N229)
  • 02-2652-3078 (O) (Office)
  • 02-2782-9142 (Fax)

Specialty:
  • Viral and Cancer Immunology
  • Viral and Cancer Immunotherapy
  • Vaccine Development
  • Gene Therapy

Education and Positions:
  • Ph.D.  Columbia University (Microbiology and Immunology).

    Postdoctoral Fellow.  Stanford University (Oncology)


  • 日常維護流程─ FACSCelesta
  • 感染性檢體流式細胞儀使用規則(2017)

  • Highlight Detail
    ...

    Rapid generation of mouse model for emerging infectious disease with the case of severe COVID-19

    Dr. Tao, Mi-Hua
    PLOS Pathogens, Aug 11, 2021

     

     

    Since the pandemic of COVID-19 has intensely struck human society, small animal model for this infectious disease is in urgent need for basic and pharmaceutical research. Although several COVID-19 animal models have been identified, many of them show either minimal or inadequate pathophysiology after SARS-CoV-2 challenge. Here, we describe a new and versatile strategy to rapidly establish a mouse model for emerging infectious diseases in one month by multi-route, multi-serotype transduction with recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors expressing viral receptor. In this study, the proposed approach enables profound and enduring systemic expression of SARS-CoV-2-receptor hACE2 in wild-type mice and renders them vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Upon virus challenge, generated AAV/hACE2 mice showed pathophysiology closely mimicking the patients with severe COVID-19. The efficacy of a novel therapeutic antibody cocktail RBD-chAbs for COVID-19 was tested and confirmed by using this AAV/hACE2 mouse model, further demonstrating its successful application in drug development.

    Author summary:

    Upon the emergence of new infectious disease, animal model becomes a pivotal tool for study of disease mechanism and development of therapeutics. In this study, we propose a versatile approach that allows rapid generation of mouse model for novel infectious disease once the receptor of the pathogen is identified. We demonstrated this approach by generating a mouse model for COVID-19 in a month’s time. These mice were capable of recapitulating severe COVID-19 in patients, and successfully applied in the development of a therapeutic antibody cocktail for the disease. This not only suggests the usefulness of this mouse model for the research on COVID-19, but also exhibit the utility of the proposed approach for establishing animal model for infectious disease.