Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Anna Wang-Erickson, PhD for recently being awarded a K01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support her research in identifying genomic factors in dominant strains of the human metapneumovirus (HMPV). Wang-Erickson is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in our Division of Infectious Diseases as well as the Associate Director of our Institute for Infection, Inflammation, and Immunity in Children (i4Kids).
HMPV is recognized worldwide as a major cause of acute respiratory disease and is the second most common cause of lower respiratory infection in children in the US. Despite this, however, there is no targeted treatment for HMPV and it is not routinely tested for in clinical settings.
Using a large and robust collection of HMPV-positive clinical samples collected with corresponding patient data from 7 US cities, Wang-Erickson and her research team aim to decipher the genomic factors that contribute to HMPV strain dominance and to determine the extent to which viruses in different HMPV genomic subgroups differentially circulate in the population and are associated with disease severity.
Understanding which mutations are associated with dominance would greatly help the development of preventive and therapeutic treatments. This project would continue to gain essential knowledge in viral genomic sequencing and genomic analysis tools to study the evolution of HMPV, as well as develop epidemiological methods to study patient and viral factors associated with infection and clinical outcomes.
Join us in congratulating Dr. Wang-Erickson on this fantastic achievement. And follow Pitt Pediatrics on Bluesky for future updates on her research progress.