Jason McLellan and his Research on SARS-COV2

My historical fields of interest lie in the distant past — but for me, it seems almost ancient history to realize that a year ago today on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization decreed that COVID-19 was indeed a pandemic, and the world changed utterly.

That was before the deaths of nearly 530,000 Americans (so far) from this Janus-faced disease, which leaves some untouched, but kills so many others. Back then we knew so very little about it: how it spread, whether the virus would clear the body or remain chronic, how to best treat patients struggling to breathe. It amazes me that before the year was out, we would not only have answers to these questions, but, amazingly, we would also have a vaccine.

The person featured here is one Jason McLellan, and everyone vaccinated (in the US) has him to thank for being protected against this disease. Jason McLellan is a researcher at the University of Texas in Austin, and his work on the SARS-COV2 virus is partially responsible for the hope we have in coming out of this pandemic so quickly. McLellan’s lab did a number of things — straight off, it was the first to make a three-dimensional molecular structure of the infamous “spike protein” of the virus.

But Jason’s work went beyond this. He and other scientists had worked on the earlier MERS virus and using his knowledge of structural biology, engineered the SARS-COV2 spike protein– he added amino acids called prolines (they are the most rigid of amino acids) onto a critical point of the spike. This stabilized the shape of spike, which ended up eliciting four times the amount of antibodies as the “wild-type” virus. Four times the amount — Moderna, Pfitzer, and Johnson & Johnson’s incredible success can be attributed to this seemingly small change.

Jason McLellan wears a lab coat, not a cape. I think Marvel and DC Comics might need to change their superhero costume prototype.