UTMB's Dr. Pei-Yong Shi "at tip of spear" with vaccine development and testing

PUBLISHED IN THE GALVESTON COUNTY DAILY NEWS - October 12, 2021

By John Wayne Ferguson

GALVESTON -- It isn’t just the physicians at the University of Texas Medical Branch who have been on the front lines of the pandemic.

The medical branch’s renowned researchers also have been at the tip of the spear when it comes to finding ways to combat the virus through vaccines.

Leading that charge is microbiologist Dr. Pei-Yong Shi, whose work on COVID-19 led to millions of people being inoculated against the virus.

Shi’s lab at the medical branch has been studying, and manipulating, the COVID-19 virus since before it became a crisis in the United States. What started as a sudden change of research focus has now thrust him to the forefront of fighting the virus.

The medical branch received an active sample of the COVID-19 virus in February 2020, before almost every other lab in the country. Shi was among the medical branch personnel who were pushing the Chinese and U.S. governments to distribute COVID samples to labs so work on diagnostics and treatment could begin.

The medical branch received a sample of the virus taken from one of the first people infected in the United States.

TIP OF THE SPEAR

Since then, Shi’s lab has been at the leading edge of research into the virus and into the vaccines that are seen as the best hope to quelling the pandemic.

Early in the pandemic, Shi’s lab was the first to reverse-engineer the genetic system of the virus, which allows scientists to safely mutate the virus in a lab setting.

“We can man-make the virus and we can manipulate the virus in any way we want,” Shi said. “That’s really the landmark of being able to get a handle to study the virus, because all of a sudden, you can make changes in the virus.”

After the reverse-engineering was completed, one of the first manipulations his lab developed was a technique to make the virus glow bright green by using enzymes produced by fireflies.

While the coloring might seem novel, it served an important purpose: it helped researchers see what changed in the virus when it was exposed to outside forces, like a vaccine or a treatment.

“You can see it now,” Shi said. “Otherwise, you can’t see which cell it’s infecting. Now, you can use the green to test whether the vaccinated blood has antibodies to block the green.”

RARE FACILITY

Shi’s lab later joined with Pfizer to help study how well the vaccine works against the virus and its variants. Part of that partnership was out of necessity. Pfizer didn’t have the type of high-level laboratory, like the ones at the medical branch. All of Shi’s work on the virus is done in secure Bio-safety Level 3 labs, where researchers have to wear special gear to protect themselves from exposure to the virus.

When you see a study stating the Pfizer vaccine is effective against a variant or that booster shots are effective in increasing antibodies, some of that data that led to that conclusion came out of Shi’s lab.

The need for the new and latest information about the virus means the lab has been working more or less non-stop since the first sample arrived.

A blood sample that needs to be tested and logged by the lab can come at any time, from anywhere around the world, and someone from Shi’s lab almost always is available to accept it, he said.

“Thanksgiving eve, Christmas Eve,” Shi said of times samples have shown up. “Whenever they tell us a sample is coming, we make sure we’re there. It’s 24/7.”

‘MAGNITUDE OF IT’

Sometimes, the samples are flown to nearby airports by corporate jets, he said. The samples are then whisked away to Shi’s lab in Galveston, where they’re logged and tested for antibodies. The lab’s job is, ultimately, to help determine how well vaccines are holding up against the virus. It’s a critical question in many parts of the world as large parts of the population begin to pass first anniversaries of their vaccinations.

Shi, a native of China, arrived at the medical branch six years ago, after working for a private pharmaceutical company. Before the pandemic, his research was focused on emerging mosquito-borne diseases, like Zika.

But that changed with the pandemic, when nearly the full force of the medical branch’s research labs was turned toward investigating COVID-19.

“When we saw the pandemic emerge, I think we felt obligated,” Shi said. ”Anything you can do, then you want to jump in and do it.”

Shi’s lab has brought him recognition. Last year, he was named inaugural holder of the John Sealy Distinguished Chair in Innovations in Molecular Biology at the medical branch. The endowed position was created with a $1 million grant from The Sealy & Smith Foundation.

The work filled him with pride, especially given how close to home the virus has hit, Shi said. Every day, when he goes to work, he’s on the same campus where people are being treated for COVID-19 and where others are being vaccinated against it.

“In my career of 30 years, there are drugs coming from my hands that have been approved and used on humans, including for HIV in AIDS patients,” Shi said. “That was really gratifying. But compared to this one, this one is 100 times, 1,000 times bigger. The impact of it, the magnitude of it, it’s global. It’s everybody.”