This presentation will begin on Wednesday, December 15th, 2021, at 02:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. At least 30 minutes will be reserved for Q&A.
Audience members may arrive 15 minutes in advance of this time.
While highly efficacious vaccines are proving essential to combating the COVID-19 pandemic, evolution of variants and waning immunity are elevating risk of breakthrough infection. This presentation will review viral evolution of SARS-CoV-2 with a focus on the Delta variant. The role of anti-spike neutralizing antibodies, including their role in both vaccine efficacy and natural infection, will be discussed. Emerging data on vaccine "boosts" relevant to both antibody levels and protection from breakthrough infection will be reviewed.
Learning objectives:
- Understand the role of the spike protein and neutralizing antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 infection
- Discuss the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants with a focus on Delta
- Explore evidence for neutralizing antibody as a correlate of protection
- Review data for the importance of neutralizing antibody levels in vaccine efficacy, and how both waning immunity and variants may contribute to breakthrough infection
Speaker
Katherine Soreng, PhD
Siemens Healthineers Global Director of Clinical Education
Dr. Soreng completed her BS in Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle and her PhD in Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.
As an undergraduate, she conducted research on human herpes viruses, including clinical testing and diagnosis.
She completed a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the National Centers for Infectious Disease, where she investigated pathogenic factors associated with measles virus infection.
Dr. Soreng currently heads Global Clinical Education for Laboratory Diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers. She writes and educates on a variety of clinical diagnostic disease states, including Infectious Disease, Liver Fibrosis, and Cardiology.
