SARS-CoV-2 T Cell Immunity
In collaboration with Charité (Prof. Andreas Thiel) the T Cell immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination was systematically analyzed. For the first time, the presence of SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells was revealed not only in patients with COVID-19 but also in healthy donors (Braun et al., Nature 2020). Upon vaccination with BNT162b2, strong T cell immunity was developed with kinetics resemblingthose of secondary immune responses. Furthermore, a universal immunodominant coronavirus-specific peptide epitope (iCope) was identified (Loyal et al., medRxiv 2021).