University of Birmingham

The CIC Centre at Birmingham will address three topics related to COVID-19.

Firstly, we will define which parts of the virus are ‘recognised’ by the cellular immune system and how this compares between different people.

We will also assess how the immune response to the virus is influenced at the ‘extremes of age’, comparing samples from children with those from older individuals. This is important as the clinical outcome after infection is much less severe in younger people and it is not entirely clear why this is so.

Finally, we will also study how the immune response to the virus might ‘turn against’ the body by making an immune response against normal tissues such the heart or liver. This may be important in the development of clinical problems recognised as ‘long COVID’.

Our work will collaborate with research teams across a range of CIC Centres and will address questions asked directly from public and patient involvement.