Understanding the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 is critical to our ability to control the coronavirus pandemic. UK-CIC sees the UK's world-leading immunology community deliver a co-ordinated and agile national research programme to increase our understanding of how the immune system interacts with SARS-CoV-2. UK-CIC is led by Professor Paul Moss (University of Birmingham) and brings together 20 UK immunology centres of excellence, with support from the British Society for Immunology, to answer five key research questions to aid our understanding of COVID-19.

Our Aims

  1. What role does the immune system play in determining variation in susceptibility to primary infection and how does this vary across the life course?
  2. How is protective immunity generated, what are its characteristics and duration, and how effectively is protective immunity boosted upon re-exposure to infection?
  3. Does the host immune response contribute to pathology and what is the role of immunomodulatory therapies in COVID-19?
  4. Is there immunological cross reactivity to other coronaviruses and is it protective or contributes to pathology?
  5. What are the immune evasion strategies of SARS-CoV-2?

UK-CIC is funded by:

UKRI logo

NIHR

UK-CIC is supported by:

British Society for Immunology logo