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Jie Sun, PhD, Secures Grants Totaling $6.2 Million to Study Aging and Chronic Diseases After Viral Injury - Featured - Medicine in Motion News
Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of Medicine Jie Sun, PhD, in the UVA Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research and the Department of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, has secured two new five-year NIH R01 awards totaling $6.2 million. Dr. Sun’s...
news.med.virginia.edu
Jie Sun, PhD, Secures Grants Totaling $6.2 Million to Study Aging and Chronic Diseases After Viral Injury
June 24, 2025 by daf4a@virginia.eduHarrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of Medicine Jie Sun, PhD, in the UVA Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research and the Department of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, has secured two new five-year NIH R01 awards totaling $6.2 million. Dr. Sun’s projects aim to unravel why some people, especially older adults, never fully bounce back after severe respiratory infections such as COVID-19 or influenza and to develop strategies that restore healthy lung function.
The first grant, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, focuses on the lingering lung problems that plague many “long-COVID” patients. Dr. Sun’s team has discovered that an immune alarm signal called interferon-gamma can remain switched on after the virus is gone, prompting a prolonged conversation between lung-resident T cells and macrophages that fuels scarring. Over the next five years, the researchers will pinpoint exactly how interferon-gamma from T cells sparks this chronic inflammation, test whether blocking its partner pathway (STAT1) in macrophages prevents long-term damage, and chart the entire molecular chain in search of drug targets.
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I believe this is the relevant NIH grant https://reporter.nih.gov/search/yJf4UCFg4kGzaS1vl3T0LA/project-details/11044253