Kalani Ratnasiri

In the 21st century, we have seen the emergence of many epidemic and pandemic viruses, with the most recent being the SARS-CoV-2 driven COVID-19 pandemic. Despite emerging viruses constantly threatening global health, we remain largely unprepared for the next pandemic. Previous pan-virus multi-cohort analyses have found that emergency myelopoiesis and monocyte dysfunction correlate with severe disease; however, shared phenotypes and therapeutic targets of these severity-associated monocytes remain unexplored. Here, we’ll leverage (1) proteomic, transcriptional and epigenetic single-cell profiling and (2) host-pathogen and drug-target interaction data to identify conserved mechanisms of pathological monocyte activation and broad-spectrum antivirals across acute RNA viral diseases. This work aims to identify diagnostics and therapeutics across multiple viruses to enhance pandemic preparedness.