ACE2 – from discovery to the centre of a pandemic

Presenter: Dr. Josef Penninger is a world-renowned geneticist and the Canada 150 Research Chair in Functional Genetics. Dr. Penninger is currently the Director of the Life Sciences Institute (LSI) at the University of British Columbia. His major accomplishments include pioneering insights into the molecular basis of osteoporosis and breast cancer, and demonstrating a critical role for ACE2 as the cellular receptor for the SARS Coronavirus infections and linking ACE2 to lung failure in such infections. Summary: My group developed the first ACE2 mutant mice which we initially identified studying fly heart development (Crackower et al. Nature 2002). We then developed ICUs for lung failure in mice which allowed us to show that ACE2 is the essential SARS receptor in vivo (Kuba et a. Nature Medicine) and that ACE2 protects from lung injury providing a molecular explanation why SARS-CoV and now SARS-CoV2 become lethal diseases (as compared to other Coronaviruses giving us the common cold) (Imai et al. Nature 2005). Over the years we also showed that ACE2 protects multiple tissues such as the heart, lung, kidney, or blood vessels from more serious disease and that ACE2 is also expressed in the kidney and the luminal surface of the gut epithelium (e.g. Danilczyk et al. Nature 2006, Hashimoto et al. Nature 2012, etc). Therefore, our previous work has provided critical insights and a blueprint for the current COVID-19 pandemic. I will discuss how this knowledge is being translated to clinical trials in severe COVID-19 patients.

BC CDC Presenters

11/17/2020 8:00:00 PM