Research: How does COVID affect different body tissues and organs?
The RECOVER Initiative has awarded over $55 million in funding for more than 60 research projects that look at biological mechanisms—processes that take place inside the body and its cells—to help us understand Long COVID.
RECOVER pathobiology studies use various research methods, including the examination of blood, saliva, and other samples (called biospecimens) and other data collected in RECOVER and existing Long COVID studies.
The findings from these pathobiology studies will tell us more about:
- The traits of people at higher risk of developing Long COVID
- The differences in the parts of the body affected by Long COVID
- How and where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can remain in the body
- Different ways of diagnosing Long COVID
- Options for treating and preventing symptoms of Long COVID
Looking for other RECOVER Research Awardees? Visit the RECOVER Researchers page.
See Funding Announcements for more information on RECOVER research awards.
Visit RECOVER Publications to view published pathobiology studies.
RECOVER Pathobiology Awards
RECOVER pathobiology awards were made to applications received in response to one of the following funding opportunities:
- Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Availability of Administrative Supplements for Research on Pathobiological Mechanisms of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
- Research Opportunity Announcement (ROA) OTA-21-015E: Research on Pathobiological Mechanisms Underpinning the Clinical Phenotypes, Symptomatic Manifestations, and Multi-tissue/organ Pathology of Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
- Research Opportunity Announcement (ROA) OTA-21-015J: RECOVER PASC Pathobiology Substudies (PDF, 221 KB)
The NOSI provided more funding to RECOVER researchers whose current studies show promise to quickly advance understanding of what causes lasting symptoms in Long COVID. ROA OTA-21-015E and ROA OTA-21-015J provided new funding to teams of RECOVER researchers from different specialty areas to support further analysis of tissue samples and data collected in current RECOVER studies.
The first round of awards, funding 41 pathobiology research projects, were made in 2022 and 2023. A second round of awards, funding an additional 20 pathobiology research projects, were made in December 2024.
| Title | Principal Investigator | Institution | Year | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Autonomic PASC Syndromes Arising from Functional Autoantibodies against G-protein Coupled Receptors. | Mark Goldberg | University of Texas at San Antonio | 2024 | ROA |
| Deep Longitudinal Assessment of Cumulative Co-infections Using Epitope Level Immune Scanning and the Effect on PASC Phenotypes, Severity, and Trajectory. | Jason Goldman | Swedish Health Services | 2024 | ROA |
| Defining and mitigating mucosal persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in individuals with PASC | Monica Kraft | The Mount Sinai Hospital | 2024 | ROA |
| Diagnosing Inflammatory PASC for SARS-CoV-2 Reservoirs and Reactivation of EBV, CMV, & HSV with MENSA (Media Enriched with Newly Synthesized Antibodies), a Novel Diagnostic Approach. | Frances Lee | Emory University | 2024 | ROA |
| Driving Discovery of Comparative Predictive Diagnostics for Infection-Associated Chronic Illnesses Through Deep Immunoinflammatory Profiling | Janko Nikolich | University of Arizona | 2024 | ROA |
| EBV Reactivation and PASC: Insights from Extracellular Vesicle Analysis. | Yue Lu | University of Utah | 2024 | ROA |
| Evaluation of High-Throughput Measurements of Persistent SARS-CoV-2 in the Occurrence of Various PASC Phenotypes | Michael Peluso | University of California, San Francisco | 2024 | ROA |
| Identification and Characterization of Viral Reservoirs in Patients with Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection. | James Stone | Massachusetts General Hospital | 2024 | ROA |
| IgA autoimmunity and thrombosis among PASC patients with persistent respiratory symptoms | Ana Rodriguez Fernandez | New York University Grossman Long Island School of Medicine | 2024 | ROA |
| Integrated Virus and Host Mechanisms of PASC | Bruce Levy | Brigham and Women’s Hospital | 2024 | ROA |
| Integrating Age, Obesity, Inflammation, Metabolism, and Tissue Injury to Understand Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection. | Senta Georgia | Children’s Hospital Los Angeles | 2024 | ROA |
| Investigations of increased cardiovascular risk and coagulation in survivors of COVID-19 including those with PASC: role of oxidative lipids and glucose metabolism | Grace McComsey | Case Western Reserve University | 2024 | ROA |
| Leveraging RECOVER Infrastructure to Identify the Signatures and Pharmacological Treatments for PASC Respiratory Conditions | Kelan Tantisira | University of California, San Diego | 2024 | ROA |
| Neuro-threat circuity in POTS and PASC: Distinct or more of the same? | Patricia Kinser | Virginia Commonwealth University | 2024 | ROA |
| Premature senescence as a cause of shortness of breath in PASC | Peter Chen | Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | 2024 | ROA |
| SARS-CoV-2 Neuroimmune Vascular Reservoirs in PASC | Chiara Giannarelli | New York University Grossman Long Island School of Medicine | 2024 | ROA |
| Systems Biology of Newly-Infected RECOVER Participants | Paul J Utz | Stanford University | 2024 | ROA |
| Unbiased and machine learning approaches to the identification of baseline predictors of PASC | Rafik Sekaly | Emory University | 2024 | ROA |
| Understanding the Influence of Social Determinants of Health on Pulmonary Function in COVID Recovery | Hemang Yadav | Mayo Clinic | 2024 | ROA |
| Vascular metabolic dysfunction in skeletal muscle for explaining post-exertional malaise in PASC. | Robert Motl | University of Illinois | 2024 | ROA |
| Autonomic Complications of PASC | Mitchell Miglis | Stanford University | 2023 | ROA |
| Cardiac Inflammatory and Microvascular Alterations Associated with Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Robert Padera | Brigham and Women’s Hospital | 2023 | ROA |
| Cerebral Microvascular Integrity in Children With and Without Persistent Central Nervous System Symptomatology | John C. Wood | Children’s Hospital Los Angeles | 2023 | ROA |
| Characterization of Autoantibodies in PASC | Paul J. Utz | Stanford University | 2023 | ROA |
| From Big Data to Big Knowledge and AI: Connecting Multi-omics COVID-19 Cohort Data to Knowledge Graphs to Explain Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Long-COVID | Sui Huang | Institute for Systems Biology | 2023 | ROA |
| Functional Immune Responses in Children with Post-Acute Sequelae SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Thomas Connors | The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York | 2023 | ROA |
| GenoMISC: Genetic Determinants of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome after SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children (MIS-C) | Mark Russell | The Regents of the University of Michigan | 2023 | ROA |
| Host Response to SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Its Role in PASC | Bellur Prabhakar | University of Illinois at Chicago | 2023 | ROA |
| Immune and Neurovascular Signatures of Psychiatric Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Scott Russo | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai | 2023 | ROA |
| Improving Understanding and Diagnosis of Post-Acute Sequelae of the SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC) in the Heart: A Cardiac Magnetic Resonance and Autopsy Study | Aloke V. Finn | CVPath Institute | 2023 | ROA |
| Long COVID in the Eye (LoCEYE) Study with the RECOVER Initiative | Ighovwerha Ofotokun | Emory University | 2023 | ROA |
| Long-term Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Diabetes Mellitus | Ralph DeFronzo | The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | 2023 | ROA |
| Machine Learning-Assisted Characterization of Cardiovascular Long COVID-19 | Masanori Aikawa | Brigham and Women’s Hospital | 2023 | ROA |
| Metabolic and Epigenetic Mechanisms of PASC | Rafick Sekaly | Emory University | 2023 | ROA |
| Metabolic Dysfunction, Viral Persistence and Bioenergetic T-Cell Fatigue in Post-Acute SARS-CoV2 | Clifford J. Rosen | MaineHealth | 2023 | ROA |
| Molecular Determination of Risk for PASC by High Sensitivity Serological Analyses of Inflammatory Pathway Markers, Prior Viral Histories and Autoantibodies | David Walt | Brigham and Women’s Hospital | 2023 | ROA |
| Neurological Sequelae Associated with Post-Acute SARS-CoV-2 Infection (NEURO-PASC) | Amy Salisbury | Virginia Commonwealth University | 2023 | ROA |
| Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and PASC: Persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection and Inflammation in Human Adipose Tissue | Catherine Blish | Stanford University | 2023 | ROA |
| Origins of Post-Acute Sequelae SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC) Lung Fibrosis | Amit Gaggar | University of Alabama at Birmingham | 2023 | ROA |
| Pathophysiological Mechanisms of PASC: Inflammatory Mediators of Endothelial Dysfunction in the RECOVER Cohort | Ellen Kraig | The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | 2023 | ROA |
| Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) Investigators Consortium Phase 2: Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) | Lawrence Kleinman | Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School | 2023 | ROA |
| Prenatal Immune Activation and Maternal Mental Health as Predictors of Infant Sleep and Cognitive Development | Moriah Thomason | New York University Grossman School of Medicine | 2023 | ROA |
| Role of Sleep in PASC Recovery and the Development of Immunological Memory | Monika Haack | Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center | 2023 | ROA |
| Sequencing B Cell Repertoires to Elucidate Autoantibodies and the Role of EBV in PASC | William Robinson | Stanford University | 2023 | ROA |
| Tryptophan Metabolism and Microbiome in Long-COVID Related Kidney Disease | Kumar Sharma | The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | 2023 | ROA |
| Understanding Adaptive and Innate Immune Cell Dysfunction in Patients with PASC | Purvesh Khatri | Stanford University | 2023 | ROA |
| Viral and Host Genomics Influences on the Phenotypic Expression of COVID-19 Infection and Its Sequelae in Children of Varied Genetic Ancestries | Sindhu Mohandas | Children’s Hospital Los Angeles | 2023 | ROA |
| Cerebral Vascular Pathology of COVID-19 | Michal Toborek | University of Miami School of Medicine | 2022 | NOSI |
| Cerebrospinal Fluid in PASC: A Window into the COVID Mind | Serena S. Spudich | Yale University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Deciphering the Link Between Severe Acute Respiratory Coronavirus 2 Infection and Long-Term Neurological and Pulmonary Sequelae | Xin Sun | University of California, San Diego | 2022 | NOSI |
| Elucidating Genetic and Environmental Second Hits in Racial and Ethnic Minorities with APOL1 High-Risk Genotypes | Girish Nitin Nadkarni | Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai | 2022 | NOSI |
| Epigenetic Alterations and Phenotypes in Innate Immune Cells and Their Progenitors in PASC | Steven Zvi Josefowicz | Weill Medical College of Cornell University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Features and Functions of ACE2 Autoantibodies that Developed after SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Christopher Todd Bradley | Children’s Mercy Hospital | 2022 | NOSI |
| Imaging Neuroglial Mechanisms of Neuropathic Pain-Opioid Interaction in HIV | Marco Luciano Loggia | Massachusetts General Hospital | 2022 | NOSI |
| Leptin Reduction as a Potent Mitigative Strategy for the Treatment of PASC | Philipp E. Scherer | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center | 2022 | NOSI |
| Maintenance and Incidence of ME/CFS following Mono | Leonard A. Jason | DePaul University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Mechanisms of Long-term Taste Loss in Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 | Hong Wang | Monell Chemical Senses Center | 2022 | NOSI |
| Pathobiological mechanisms of persistent post-COVID19 olfactory dysfunction | Bradley John Goldstein | Duke University School of Medicine | 2022 | NOSI |
| Pathogenic Mechanisms of Neuro-PASC in Older Adults | Kristen Knutson | Northwestern University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Post-Acute Metabolic Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Nonhuman Primates | Charles T. Roberts | Oregon Health and Science University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Role of NLRP3 Signals in Ischemia/Reperfusion-Induced Organ Injury | Diane B. McKay | The Scripps Research Institute | 2022 | NOSI |
| Role of the Superantigen- and Neurotoxin-like Motifs in SARS-CoV2 Spike in Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC) | Moshe Arditi | Cedars-Sinai Medical Center | 2022 | NOSI |
| Sex, Obesity, Immunometabolism, and Viral Persistence in Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Andrea L. Cox | Johns Hopkins University | 2022 | NOSI |
| Tissue and Organ Specific Human B Cell Immunity: Supplement -- Metabolic Risk Factors and Inflammation in PASC Development | Frances E. Lund | University of Alabama at Birmingham | 2022 | NOSI |
| Viral and Immune-Mediated CNS Pathology During SARS-CoV-2 Infection | Akiko Iwasaki | Yale University | 2022 | NOSI |