Zoe Swank

• PhD in Bioengineering
• Postdoctoral researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Immune responses from prior severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19 vaccination mitigate disease severity, but they do not fully prevent subsequent infections, especially from genetically divergent strains. We examined the incidence of and immune differences against human endemic coronaviruses (eCoVs) as...

Background Kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) generate lower antibody responses to messenger RNA (mRNA)‐based severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) vaccination, yet precise mechanisms for this poor response remain uncertain. One potential contributor is suboptimal spike antigen (sAg) translation and expression owing to trans...

Prior infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is typically measured by nucleocapsid serology assays. In this study, we show that the Simoa serology assay and T-cell intracellular cytokine staining assay are more sensitive than the clinical Elecsys assay for detection of nucleocapsid-specific immune responses. The...

During the COVID-19 pandemic it was widely described that certain individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2 experience persistent disease signs and symptoms, Long COVID, which in some cases is very severe with life changing consequences. To maximize our chances of identifying the underpinnings of this illness, we have focused on 121 of the most severe cas...

Although young children generally experience mild symptoms following infection with SARS-CoV-2, severe acute and long-term complications can occur. SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines elicit robust immunoglobulin profiles in children ages 5 years and older, and in adults, corresponding with substantial protection against hospitalizations and severe disease. W...

The quantification and characterization of aggregated α-synuclein in clinical samples offer immense potential toward diagnosing, treating, and better understanding neurodegenerative synucleinopathies. Here, we developed digital seed amplification assays to detect single α-synuclein aggregates by partitioning the reaction into microcompartments. Usi...

Immune responses from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination do not prevent re-infections and may not protect against future novel coronaviruses (CoVs). We examined the incidence of and immune differences against human endemic CoVs (eCoV) as a proxy for response against future emerging CoVs. Assessment was among those with known SARS-C...

Although young children generally experience mild symptoms following infection with SARS-CoV-2, severe acute and long-term complications can occur. SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines elicit robust immunoglobulin profiles in children ages 5 years and older, and in adults, corresponding with substantial protection against hospitalizations and severe disease. W...

Background: The role of donor and recipient COVID-19 immunologic status pre-transplant has not been fully investigated for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients. Given poor immunogenicity to vaccines in this population and severe outcomes of COVID-19, adoptive transfer of immunity may offer important insights for improved...

Background: Cases of adolescents and young adults developing myocarditis after vaccination with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-targeted mRNA vaccines have been reported globally, but the underlying immunoprofiles of these individuals have not been described in detail. Methods: From January 2021 through February 2022...

Objectives The appropriate triage of abnormal cervical cancer screening results can limit colposcopy to those at highest risk. The objective of this study was to incorporate antibodies associated with cervical dysplasia and carcinoma onto the Single Molecule Array (Simoa) platform and to identify the optimal combination of biomarkers. Methods Pati...

To the Editor—In their letter, Alaedini and Wormser assert that the conclusions of our study linking severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike with post-acute sequelae of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (PASC) are open to considerable doubt. In the article, we presented the study as preliminary and discussed the limitat...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2022.100244.].

The diagnosis of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) poses an ongoing medical challenge. To identify biomarkers associated with PASC we analyzed plasma samples collected from PASC and COVID-19 patients to quantify viral antigens and inflammatory markers. We detect SARS-CoV-2 spike predominantly in PASC patients up to 12 months post-diagnosis.

We present a low-cost, do-it-yourself system for complex mammalian cell culture under dynamically changing medium formulations by integrating conventional multi-well tissue culture plates with simple microfluidic control and system automation. We demonstrate the generation of complex concentration profiles, enabling the investigation of sophisticat...

The diagnosis and management of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) poses an ongoing medical challenge. Identifying biomarkers associated with PASC would immensely improve the classification of PASC patients and provide the means to evaluate treatment strategies. We analyzed plasma samples collected from a cohort of PASC and COVID-19 patients (n...

Objectives: A recent study suggests that Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) is triggered by gastrointestinal breach of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral particles from the gut lumen into systemic circulation. The virus remains in the gut weeks to months after respiratory infection, causing zonuli...

Significance COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, led to an unprecedented global health crisis. As the majority of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have no or only mild symptoms, many cases aren’t captured by direct testing. However, it is important to establish the true spread of the virus by identifying how many people have been exposed. Detection of a...

Forward engineering synthetic circuits are at the core of synthetic biology. Automated solutions will be required to facilitate circuit design and implementation. Circuit design is increasingly being automated with design software, but innovations in experimental automation are lagging behind. Microfluidic technologies made it possible to perform i...

Cell-free synthetic biology offers an approach to building and testing gene circuits in a simplified environment free from the complexity of a living cell. Recent advances in microfluidic devices allowed cell-free reactions to run under nonequilibrium, steady-state conditions enabling the implementation of dynamic gene regulatory circuits in vitro....

Forward engineering synthetic circuits is at the core of synthetic biology. Automated solutions will be required to facilitate circuit design and implementation. Circuit design is increasingly being automated with design software, but innovations in experimental automation are lagging behind. Microfluidic technologies made it possible to perform in...

Novel technologies are needed to facilitate large-scale detection and quantification of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in human blood samples. Such technologies are essential to support seroprevalence studies, vaccine clinical trials, and to monitor quality and duration of immunity. We developed a microfluidic nano-immunnoassay for the detection of...

Cell-free systems offer a promising approach to engineer biology since their open nature allows for well-controlled and characterized reaction conditions. In this review, we discuss the history and recent developments in engineering recombinant and crude extract systems, as well as breakthroughs in enabling technologies, that have facilitated incre...

Cell-free synthetic biology offers an approach to building and testing gene circuits in a simplified environment free from the complexity of a living cell. Recent advances in microfluidic devices allowed cell-free reactions to run under non-equilibrium, steady state conditions enabling the implementation of dynamic gene regulatory circuits in vitro...

Gene-regulatory networks are ubiquitous in nature and critical for bottom-up engineering of synthetic networks. Transcriptional repression is a fundamental function that can be tuned at the level of DNA, protein, and cooperative protein–protein interactions, necessitating high-throughput experimental approaches for in-depth characterization. Here,...

Gene regulatory networks are ubiquitous in nature and critical for bottom-up engineering of synthetic networks. Transcriptional repression is a fundamental function in gene regulatory networks and can be tuned at the level of DNA, protein, and cooperative protein - protein interactions, necessitating high-throughput experimental approaches for in-d...

Emulsion drops are often employed as picoliter-sized containers to perform screening assays. These assays usually entail the formation of drops encompassing discrete objects such as cells or microparticles and reagents to study interactions between the different encapsulants. Drops are also used to screen influences of reagent concentrations on the...

Emulsion drops are often employed as picoliter-sized containers to perform screening assays. These assays usually entail the formation of drops encompassing discrete objects such as cells or microparticles and reagents to study interactions between the different encapsulants. Drops are also used to screen influences of reagent concentrations on the...

Cell-free environments are becoming viable alternatives for implementing biological networks in synthetic biology. The reconstituted cell-free expression system (PURE) allows characterization of genetic networks under defined conditions but its applicability to native bacterial promoters and endogenous genetic networks is limited due to the poor tr...

Cell-free environments are becoming viable alternatives for implementing biological networks in synthetic biology. The reconstituted cell-free expression system (PURE) allows characterization of genetic networks under defined conditions but its applicability to native bacterial promoters and endogenous genetic networks is limited due to the poor tr...

The physical properties of polymeric actin facilitate many mechanical processes within the cell, including cellular deformation and locomotion, whereby the polymers can be confined to a range of different geometries. As actin polymers often form entangled solutions in the cell, we have investigated the effect of confinement on the evolution of enta...

Microfluidics-based experiments provide an opportunity to study the complexity of hierarchical dynamics and structural assembly in complex chemical as well as biological processes. The precise control of external parameters and the possibility to generate gradients on the nano- and micrometer length scale allows for investigations of intermediates...

The modularity and singular complementary nature of RNA allows us to control the arrangement of recurring structural motifs that form a wide range of non-covalent tertiary interactions to create hierarchical three-dimensional architectures. Sequence and structural analysis of identified X-ray RNA motifs has allowed for the development of syntax rul...