Clara Sophie Kummerer

Clara Sophie Kummerer

Home: Universität Wien
Host: Harvard Medical School - Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Topic: Characterizing the spatial distribution and phenotypic changes of lung-resident macrophage populations in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection across different viral variants and immunization conditions

Clara’s research centres around understanding host-pathogen interactions across biological scales from the tissue to the single protein level. Her project at Harvard Medical School aims to describe the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection with a focus on characterizing novel cell subtypes and their interactions.

Supervised by Professor Sizun Jiang, a pioneer at integrating high-resolution spatial omics methods, Clara is analysing the expression of proteins and RNA in infected lung tissue at the single-cell level. Besides scientific inspiration and motivation, the Harvard ecosystem is an endless source of volleyball players, fantastic Chinese food, apple picking buddies, and creative breaks during the lab day.