Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis and Transmission (CRIPT)

Longitudinal Human Influenza Studies

CRIPT conducts several human longitudinal studies aimed to better understand actors associated with immunoprotection, severity of disease and transmission of influenza viruses and to isolate and characterize influenza viruses circulating in humans every year.

Our CRIPT clinical team study samples from ongoing existing cohorts in Spain and South Africa of vaccinated or infected humans. In addition, we conduct longitudinal studies in vaccinated or infected humans in the US (New York University Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Washington University in St Louis and University of Maryland) and outside the US (UC-Christus Medical network in Chile). The samples collected from such a diversity of human populations in different environments but using similar disease criteria and collection procedures provide us with unique opportunities to determine how various host and environmental factors impact immunogenicity of influenza virus inactivated vaccines, severity of disease and transmission. These samples also allow us to identify potential biomarkers of responses to vaccine and natural infection.

CRIPT Cohorts

Responses to Vaccination

  • STOP FLU NYU - New York University Hospital (Mulligan)
  • LIVE ISMMS - Longitudinal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness at Mount Sinai Hospital (Simon)
  • REIPI VAC - Spanish Network for Research on Infectious Diseases (Aydillo)
  • WASHU - Washington University in St Louis (Ellebedy)

Severity of Infection

  • St. Jude’s Pediatric Influenza Cohort – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN (Ramilo)
  • CHILE - UC-Christus Medical network in Chile (Medina)
  • LARE - Longitudinal Analysis of the Respiratory Environment at Mount Sinai Hospital (Simon)
  • REIPI INF - Spanish Network for Research on Infectious Diseases (Aydillo)

Transmission

  • UMD campus - University of Maryland (Milton)
  • UMD dormitory - University of Maryland (Milton)

Surveillance in hospital settings

  • GOTHAM - Genomics of Organisms that Target Health and Affect Medicine at ISMMS, NY Metropolitan area (van Bakel, Simon)

  • STOP FLU NYU. This cohort will be assembled by Dr. Mark Mulligan at NYU and will enroll and retain 75 participants across the seven years of the CRIPT contract, to study responses to influenza vaccination, including repeated annual influenza vaccination.
  • LIVE (Longitudinal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness) ISMMS. This cohort will expand human influenza vaccine cohort studies started at ISMMS in 2017 by Dr. Viviana Simon and will maintain 50 participants receiving annual seasonal influenza vaccination for the seven years of the CRIPT contract.
  • REIPI(Spanish Network for Research on Infectious Diseases) VAC. This cohort has been assembled by our collaborator at the REIPI (Spain) and will be led by Dr. Teresa Aydillo at ISMMS. This community-oriented cohort will assess seasonal influenza vaccination in adults by studying antibody responses but also genomic and transcriptomics determinants of influenza vaccine response.
  • WASHU. This cohort will expand on the unique seasonal influenza vaccination studies started at Washington University School of Medicine in 2017 by Dr. Ali Ellebedy. These studies are designed to dissect the magnitude, quality, and durability of B cell responses to influenza vaccination in unprecedented depth. The WASHU cohort will maintain 15 participants receiving annual seasonal influenza vaccination for the seven years of the CRIPT contract.

  • St. Jude’s Pediatric Influenza Cohort. This pediatric human cohort, under the direct supervision of Dr. Octavio Ramilo at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, enrolls children with acute (severe and mild) influenza virus infection, to study factors associated with severe influenza in kids.
  • CHILE. This cohort supervised by Dr. Rafael Medina, will recruit in seven years around 400 subjects with acute influenza virus infection in Chile. Samples obtained from this cohort will be used to study severity of influenza virus infection in a predominantly adult population, as compared with the OHIO cohort.
  • LARE (Longitudinal Analysis of the Respiratory Environment) ISMMS. This cohort enrolls patients hospitalized for influenza infection at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Dr. Viviana Simon is the Principal Investigator of the study protocol. This cohort comprises influenza-infected adults of diverse ancestry without and with co-morbidities such as but not limited to solid organ or bone marrow transplantation, malignancies, or HIV/AIDS disease. Samples will be collected to study determinants of influenza pathogenesis in the context of an attenuated immune system.
  • REIPI. It is an existing funded cohort that will provide additional samples to ISMMS from humans infected with seasonal influenza viruses in Spain.

  • UMD Campus cohort conducts surveillance for influenza cases among the undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty at the College Park, University of Maryland campus (approximately 50,000 people), and integrate the data with contact data and environmental data on academic buildings, campus shuttle buses, residence halls (dorms), and apartment complexes in the campus, in order to track human-to-human transmission events.
  • UMD Dormitory cohort is nested within the UMD Campus Cohort and consists in a population of 1,500 students living in five residence halls adjacent to the UMD School of Public Health and is designed to identify modes of influenza transmission and to characterize key drivers of contagiousness.

Both cohorts are led by Dr. Donald Milton, at UMD, who has already started to conduct some of these exciting human-to-human influenza transmission studies under a pilot project of the previous CRIP.

  • GOTHAM (Genomics of Organisms that Target Health and Affect Medicine) ISMMS. Participants are recruited into this cross-sectional observational study from the entire Mount Sinai Health System under the supervision of CRIPT investigator Dr. Viviana Simon. All patients seeking care at one of the hospitals and testing positive for influenza virus are automatically enrolled in the study based on daily reports of positive test results from the clinical microbiology laboratories. This study banked 3,376 influenza A and 917 influenza B positive nasopharyngeal swab specimen (2017-2020) as well as 795 serum samples (2019-2020).