Infection of human alveolar MPS at high containment as a model for pandemic pathogens and assessment of medical countermeasures

Originally presented at the MPS World Summit 2025 Annual Meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

Authors

Naomi S. Coombes¹, Tanja Šuligoj², Rhiannon Davies¹, Tessa Prince², Lisa Luu², Conner Norris¹, Julian Hiscox², Yper Hall¹, Simon GP Funnell³, Kevin R. Bewley¹

¹UK Health Security Agency, Porton Down, Salisbury, UK; ²Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK; ³Gut Microbes and Health, Quadram Institute Bioscience, Norwich, UK

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused significant worldwide disruption to economies and healthcare systems. It is predicted that the frequency at which new pandemics occur in the future will increase due to factors such as climate change, global population increase, intensification of agriculture and closer contact with wildlife. All but one of the pathogens on the current WHO R&D emergency context priority disease list are viruses which require work to be performed at containment level 3 or 4 (BSL3 or BSL4). There is a need for physiologically relevant in vitro systems to assist pre-clinical research in preparedness for the next pandemic. For example, Disease X which by definition will be a human disease, may not infect current cell lines or animal models commonly used in virus research.

Here the authors present the results from infections with SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV of an alveolar model using the commercially available Emulate system at BSL3. They also describe the results from antiviral assessment in this model.