Body Politic x Dr. Iwasaki
About Dr. Iwasaki:
Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., is a Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Canada and her postdoctoral training from the National Institutes of Health. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of immune defense against viruses at the mucosal surfaces, and the development of mucosal vaccine strategies. She is the co-Lead Investigator of the Yale COVID-19 Recovery Study, which aims to determine the changes in the immune response of people with long COVID after vaccination. Dr. Iwasaki also leads multiple other studies to interrogate the pathobiology of long COVID, both in patients, and through developing animal models of long COVID.
About Body Politic:
Body Politic is a queer feminist group based in New York City, NY exploring the intersections of health and social justice. After 60% of Body Politic’s core team became sick with COVID-19, they created a global support group for people struggling with the virus.
Since their launch, they’ve had over 16,000 people sign up to join the group, which is housed on the Slack platform to accommodate 24/7 chat and allow for small discussion channels based on community or topic. The Body Politic COVID-19 Support Group consists of people from all over the world who are experiencing symptoms or are recovering from COVID-19. Their patient-led research team released a report from their first survey which got the attention of the NIH director, Dr. Francis Collins, and is working on a second phase of research now.
Body Politic’s COVID-19 support group and COVID community resources were created to help people living with COVID-19 connect with one another, and make the conversation about our current health crisis more inclusive of those battling the virus.
Join the Body Politic COVID-19 support group here: https://www.wearebodypolitic.com/covid19
source
