Using Multi-OMIC’s to Identify the Biochemical Basis of Host Pathology During Viral Infection

Alterations in metabolism drive tissue pathology in conditions such as cancer, tissue
injury, and infection. A major goal of our research is comprehensively track
biochemical changes associated with disease and develop new therapeutics that target
these metabolic pathways. My talk will focus on the application of integrative OMICs
technologies, including mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, to identify hostpathogen
interactions involved in sustaining viral infection as well as approaches for
screening these factors for antiviral drug development. We have applied this
comprehensive multi-OMICs approach to track metabolic changes over time in
COVID-19 patient samples and hamsters infected with SARS-CoV-2. We find that
changes in plasma metabolites track with disease severity and correlate with tissue
pathology seen in infected hamsters. These metabolites could serve as novel biomarkers
to identify patients most at risk of developing severe disease. Finally, I present
approaches to design targeted metabolic therapies to treat infection and associated tissue
pathology. This work highlights the power of using mass spectrometry-based metabolic
profiling to obtain a global view of infection dynamics and identify new druggable
targets for the treatment of viral infections.