The COMMUNITY study
Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, we initiated the COMMUNITY study (COVID 19 Immunity) in April 2020, now comprising a longitudinal cohort of 2,149 healthcare employees at Danderyd Hospital and 118 hospitalised COVID-19 patients. The overall aim is to explore systemic and mucosal antibody responses to respiratory viral infections and vaccines.
Blood and airway samples are collected every four months, and clinical data are mapped by continuous data collection through a smart-phone app system and national registers. qPCR screening programs detecting mild and asymptomatic infections are conducted during seasonal periods with high viral spread.
Key findings include the power of hybrid immunity (i.e. combination of infection and vaccine induced immunity) and the role of secretory IgA in protection against respiratory infections.
The biobank now comprises >60.000 paired serum and mucosal samples and is the base of the D/T-MAP project where we aim to link secretory IgA structure to function and protection against respiratory infections.
Funded by:
- Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation/SciLifeLab
- Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation
- Jonas and Christina af Jochnick Foundation
- The Lundblad Family
- Jonas Söderquist Scholarship Foundation
- National Institute of Health (NIH)
In collaboration with:
- Uppsala University (Mikael Åberg)
- KTH (Sophia Hober and Peter Nilsson)
- National Pandemic Center at Karolinska Institutet (Jessica Alm)
- The National University of Singapore (Youjia Zhong)
- Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York (Florian Krammer and Viviana Simon)