Helen Chu receives Clinical Virology Award

Dr. Helen Chu, associate professor (Allergy and Infectious Diseases) has received the 2023 Ed Nowakowski Senior Memorial Clinical Virology Award from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV).

The Clinical Virology Award recognizes an outstanding scientist whose contributions to clinical virology have had a major impact on the understanding of viral disease pathogenesis, epidemiology or treatment.

Dr. Chu’s research is focused on preventive interventions against influenza, RSV and emerging respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2. She conducts clinical-translational research on large-scale community-based studies of respiratory viruses, with a focus on vaccines, antivirals, and diagnostics. She is also interested in defining clinical and immune correlates of protection against respiratory viruses and describing mechanisms of maternal-fetal immunity against respiratory viruses. 

Dr. Chu is a Multiple Principal Investigator of the Seattle Flu Study, which first identified COVID-19 community transmission in the United States, Co-Investigator on the University of Washington Vaccine Trials and Evaluation Unit (VTEU), and Site Principal Investigator for the ACTT-1 trial, which evaluated Remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19.  Her lab has enrolled a prospective observational cohort of 300 COVID-19 inpatients and outpatients to study immune responses over time.

Her previous work includes describing transmission patterns of RSV, rhinovirus, and human metapneumovirus, the epidemiology and adverse birth outcomes associated with respiratory viral pneumonia in pregnant women, and the kinetics of transplacental RSV antibody transfer and decay in infants.

She has also performed clinical trials of vaccine candidates in both domestic and international sites, including Nepal and Bangladesh.