Microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses and fungi, live all around us. Some can survive on their own, while others require a host to multiply. Viruses in particular can leap across species and spark infectious, sometimes deadly, diseases. For instance, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) originated from a chimpanzee virus named simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). In the 1920s, SIV evolved into HIV through direct contact of a human with chimpanzee blood, which was prompted by the consumption of their meat. Since then, HIV became one of the world’s leading infectious killers.
Yulong Wei – a uOttawa alumnus who earned his MSc and PhD in bioinformatics under the supervision of Professor Xuhua Xia – made HIV the primary focus of his postdoctoral research at Yale University. Unlike many viral infections, HIV does not have a cure due to its latency. In other words, once HIV is integrated into the host’s DNA, it is difficult to differentiate infected cells from normal ones, making it almost impossible to completely get rid of the infection. This is especially true when the patients are undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART) – the main treatment regimen for HIV – which inhibits the expression of HIV genes, leading them to become latent in the host’s cells. Yulong’s research focuses on finding biomarkers to detect and target latent HIV cells using single cell RNA sequencing techniques. This research could lead to the ability to cure HIV by identifying and targeting latent cells to eliminate them.
Yulong’s studies at uOttawa were a focal point for his passion and continued research in the areas of microbiology and bioinformatics. During his PhD, he studied another virus that hopped across species, SARS-CoV-2. His research focused on understanding how the COVID-19 virus evolved in order to adapt to its host and the impact of this acclimation on the basic survival fitness of the virus in its new system. In addition, Yulong and his team explored the genetic material of animals that SARS-CoV-2 could have evolved from. Despite the popular belief that COVID-19 was directly transmitted from bats to humans, Yulong’s research findings reveal that pangolins were most likely the true source of the spread.
Yulong’s cutting-edge research on HIV and COVID-19 earned him several awards, namely the AIDS and Cancer Specimen Resource (ACSR) Young Investigator Pilot Award, conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) New Investigator scholarship, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Graduate Scholarship, and the Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship - doctoral.
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