eric hoyeon song
@ericsongg
Followers
2K
Following
7K
Media
121
Statuses
2K
@sooahrho’s lesser half. Our group focuses on 🧠 👁 immunology @YaleMed. @YaleOph resident. MD PhD with @VirusesImmunity
Joined November 2013
Excited to share our group's first manuscript describing new anatomical connections that allow the eyes to act as an "immunological window to the brain" 👁️🧠 (1/).
26
138
487
The first @VirusesImmunity lab brain tumor paper is out today! We began the project wanting to understand the role of meningeal lymphatics in brain tumor. To our surprise, when we expanded the lymphatics with VEGF-C, mice could no longer grow tumors!
14
79
267
@VirusesImmunity latest neuro story is up on biorxiv! We used brain organoids, K18-hACE2 mice and our recently described AAV-hACE2 mice to show the neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV-2. A huge collaborative effort, so we have a lot to share. Here we go. .
12
111
256
22
3
219
40 post mortem brains. 50% with SARS-CoV-2 RNA or Protein 20% with both RNA and Protein. This combined with the clinical report yesterday emphasizes neurocovid to be something we should really watch for.
5
83
185
🚨looking for postdocs!!! 🚨 join us at our new, @YaleMed Neuroimmunology group! We are looking for postdocs to examine all things involving brain and ocular immunology. PLEASE TAG anyone you think would be a great addition to our team!#neuroimmunology #braintumor #ophthalmology
7
65
148
Part 2 of SARS-CoV-2 and its effects on the Brain with @ShelFarFar and @VirusesImmunity!. **Highlights**.-Characterization of COVID-19 neuroinflammation.-Indirect evidence of SARS-CoV-2 neuroinvasion.-Evidence of local CNS immunity.#COVID19 #brain 1/n.
8
60
135
Thank you @WeintraubAward for recognizing our work to be a part of an amazing cohort of works from international scientists! And thank you to @VirusesImmunity and the @YaleIBIO department for the nomination for this award! .
14
3
62
:) doc topol shared!.
How #LongCovid brain fog resembles cancer "chemo-brain." An experimental model of mild Covid infection demonstrates microglial activation, loss of oligodendrocytes, confirmed at post-mortem in 9 people.@VirusesImmunity @michelle_monje
1
9
55
Our newest paper on how intranasal vaccination helps create local IgA production for protection against respiratory viruses like influenza. @JieunOh9’s awesome project that she let me be a part of :). And @VirusesImmunity’s impeccable summary of why this is so relevant!.
Our new study by @JieunOh9 @ericsongg @MiyuMoriyama et al shows that immune priming via intranasal route provides superior protection against heterologous respiratory virus challenge. The key is in inducing local secretory IgA with broader coverage. (1/).
2
7
54
@VirusesImmunity Great to see these videos on Twitter for the world to see instead of back in the supplements! Thanks for highlighting these Akiko!.
2
2
51
It seemed that the SARS-CoV-2 infected neurons didn't go through death pathways, but rather was using up more resources to produce high amounts of virus, creating a hypoxic environment for its neighboring cells. We confirmed this with some HIF1a staining
3
12
54
Our work on how molecular mechanism of MMR deficiency affects immunotherapy outcomes is out on @CD_AACR! Check out the thread by the amazing @ScienceChow. Many thanks to Dr. Santin, @VirusesImmunity for letting us take the lead on this project and to the coauthors!.
Mismatch repair-deficient (MMRd) cancers all have ⬆️high mutation burdens, so why do some patients not respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB)? We explored this in a follow-up to a phase 2 trial of aPD-1 (pembro) in MMRd endometrial cancer @CD_AACR :
1
7
51
Took us a while to get it in its final form, but proud of this final version.
I am thrilled to share our work published in @JExpMed, led by now Dr. @Ericsongg 👨🏻🎓, demonstrating the neuroinvasiveness of #SARSCoV2 using 3 different approaches; human brain organoid, mouse model and autopsy - with Ce Zhang, Kaya Bilguvar et al.
1
7
44
Our paper really highlighted the neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV-2 in the CNS, and brings up interesting biology behind what might happen if SARS-CoV-2 were to infect neurons. It goes well with a lot of pathology that autopsy studies of patients dying have been showing.
2
6
45
We were wondering how these cells were getting infected, since ACE2 expression in neuronal cells are still up for debate. We show that RNA levels of ACE2 are not the best predictor of infection, and on a protein level, ACE2 was almost expressed everywhere in the neurons!.
2
10
44
We were lucky enough to obtain CSF from a patient with COVID-19 and also had neurologic symptoms. We detected high levels of SARS-CoV-2 spike antibodies in this CSF, and saw that it could block infection also! (This is my favorite experiment in the paper, check out figure 3C)
4
9
41
An update to our neuroinvasion story. with a lot of help from great collaborators: . highlights; we found SARS-CoV-2 staining in human post-mortem brain sections, and found some additional evidence of vascular-related changes in the brain. 1/n.
@VirusesImmunity latest neuro story is up on biorxiv! We used brain organoids, K18-hACE2 mice and our recently described AAV-hACE2 mice to show the neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV-2. A huge collaborative effort, so we have a lot to share. Here we go. .
1
12
39
Knowing that every organ system (including the brain) drains something into the lymph nodes-- we investigated them and found, to our surprise, that the front and back of the eye flushed into different lymph nodes! 🤯 Why is this so important/cool? (4/)
2
7
43
Blocking ACE2 with an antibody, we saw that SARS-CoV-2 could no longer infect the organoids!
1
7
38
Direct evidence of Transposable element causing disease!.
This thread is about our new preprint on transposable element called long interspersed nuclear elements (LINE-1/L1). When expressed excessively in the cerebellum, L1 causes ataxia (impaired coordination). A fascinating finding by @taka_takehiro 👇🏽 (1/) .
1
3
37
So again, why is this so important/cool? This finding opens a new anatomical target for manipulating both biophysical & immunological properties of the CNS. We show in the paper to potentiate existing gene therapy strategies, but this is only the beginning! 🤯🧠👁️(10/).
2
5
40
This is just part one of many interesting SARS-CoV-2 neuroimmunology we have for you. Thanks to all the collaborators (you can tell by all the departments that were involved) and of course all the funders and people who allowed this to happen. Happy to hear everyone's thoughts!.
3
4
33
Grateful that our science could be shared with a larger audience. Thank you @VirusesImmunity and @apoorva_nyc for getting the story out there like this!.
The coronavirus may invade brain cells, hijacking them to make copies of itself and starving their neighbors to death.
0
6
30
So, we tested whether invoking immune responses in this lymph node allows for universal CNS immunity by vaccinating mice through different routes and observed that intravitreal immunization DOES allow for protection in the brain similar to local immunization!! (9/)
1
4
34
Our group is building on this work by exploring how to leverage this discovery to reshape our understanding of eye and brain diseases. We welcome individuals to join us in advancing this field of research. If you're interested, please don't hesitate to reach out via email! (end/).
1
2
33
The thing we found curious was the shared lymph nodes (deep cervical) between the posterior eye drainage and the brain drainage. This links with our group's previous work showing the importance of this lymph node in mediating brain tumor immunity --(8/)
1
4
33
Must read! (Not biased at all).
#JI_TopRead from @VirusesImmunity @weizmano & colleagues @YaleMed | Conventional type 2 DCs in lungs direct #IFNgamma production by local #NKCells to limit #metastasis | #ReadTheJI #tumorimmunity 👉
2
1
31
Yay!.
4
0
29
Before we jump in, proud of @XiangyunYin, @zhangsophi and Juhyun for finishing this story --and a heartfelt thank you to @VirusesImmunity, Dean Brown @YaleMed, and the team @YaleOph for their support, guidance, and encouragement that have made all the difference (2/).
1
1
32
There are two biorxiv papers already describing human brain organoid infections, and they described cells dying so we decided to also check. We saw a similar phenomenon, a lot of cell death! But to our surprise, the cells that were infected were not the ones that were dying
1
10
27
When we took a closer look at infected (red) versus neighboring cells (blue) we saw transcriptional profiles related to hyperoxia and increased metabolic activities and hypoxic and alternative metabolic pathways enriched respectively.
2
9
30
the take away is:. 1. a localized, divergent CNS immune response can occur distinct from the periphery.2. When treating systemic diseases like SARS-CoV-2, we need to consider organ specific treatments (especially for the brain!) . fin/n.
1
12
32
Thank you to the wonderful members of the laboratory of immunology at the @NatEyeInstitute for inviting me to share our upcoming pub. So awesome to see the support for #immunology in the eye under the guidance of @rcaspi #charlesegwuagu #weili and #hanyushih @NEIDirector
2
1
31
One of those days where I am so grateful to be where I am. I know #medtwitter doesn't need much convincing, but anyone in #match2022 — I highly recommend @YaleMed for their training! The medicine, the science, the people! Always happy to talk more about it.
2
2
30
To figure out what the heck was going on, we used single cell sequencing to start parsing out different transcriptional profiles of the infected organoids. Unlike Zika virus, which is known to cause significant interferon responses, we saw a completely unique programming.
1
5
28
Our collaborator Tamas, Yuki and Klara took some beautiful EM images for us to confirm the infection, along with viral particles budding off of the ER structures.
1
9
27
Of course, Akiko's summary captures our work better than I can! Thank you always for sharing in our excitement for our work @VirusesImmunity.
A brilliant paper from the #SongLab @ericsongg on the discovery of immune surveillance pathways of the eye. His team found that anterior and posterior parts of the eye have separate drainage systems. Immunization in the posterior eye induces immunity in the brain against viruses,.
1
6
28
Congrats @VirusesImmunity ! Would’ve been fun if Yale called it the center for viruses & immunity (with extra funding from @Twitter).
Congratulations to @VirusesImmunity of @YaleAge Lab on being named director of the new Center for Infection & Immunity at @YaleMed. Under Dr. Iwasaki, the center will work to gain a better understanding of the underlying pathogenesis of infectious diseases
1
4
24
We started this journey trying to understand a fundamental question: How does the eye clear out substances from all its different compartments? While the intravitreal injection of drugs is a common procedure, we have little understanding of how the drugs get cleared out (3/)
1
3
28
We started off by infecting some human brain organoids that my classmate Ce Zhang has been growing for the past few years. Check out these beautiful images that he took (more to come). We saw increasing amounts of cells infected over time.
1
10
25
Our understanding of drainage from the eye has ALWAYS focused on the front of the eye, with multiple groups showing that lymphatic-like structures drain the front of the eye, but NOW we are expanding that view and investigating where else do lymphatic-like structures exist? (5/)
1
3
26
reading/writing/obsessively checking emails may be the worst habit I picked up during my academic training— but also connecting to scientists so willing to help and give advice through email gives me weird joy on the daily.
1
0
23
Building off of @jonykipnis' work in the dural lymphatics, we used multiple mouse models, dye experiments and various techniques to show that the posterior eye eventually drains through the dural sheath-- and of course, this is preserved in many species (7/)
1
5
23
And with spatial sequencing, we were able to see lymphatic-like signals being highlighted next to the optic nerve, where the dural sheath lies (6/)
1
4
22
This is so cool. Love their interpretation of our work!.
¼ This week’s fanart is from a paper by Yin et al., published recently on Nature.°.@ericsongg @Yale @YaleMed @YaleOph @Nature.#biology #research #songlab #immunology #immunity #eye #neurobiology #neuroscience #nature #yale #researchpaper
1
2
21
More than the bench to bedside thing, MD Phd training teaches you how important/challenging it is to collaborate and talk to a variety of people. 🧬 🧫 💊.
0
0
22
We finally examined the neuroinvasiveness of SARS-CoV-2 in two mice models. The K18-hACE2 mice which showed huge neurotropic SARS-CoV-2 infection. And an adaptation of our AAV-hACE2 paper, introducing hACE2 to different compartments, highlighting its lethality in the brain.
2
4
19
@YaleMed has always had amazing basic science. but now we have @aaronmring putting it on the map for translational research!! So lucky to have him guide me and @VirusesImmunity in the journey to getting things from bench to bedside- can't wait!.
4
2
22
Whew, trying to do more fun science is a lot more work than just doing the science. So grateful to have advocates like @VirusesImmunity and @SaltzmanLab to guide me through my next steps. @YaleMed.
4
1
19
For now. read the paper, checkout this behind the paper post and look at the interesting supplementary data!.
0
5
17
Interesting how everything circles around. I found my blog that I started in 2010 where I posted medical news. One of my last post was about @jonykipnis and @LouveauAntoine's discovery on the meningeal lymphatics. And here were my comments on it. How funny.
4
1
19
Just so this doesn’t get buried. Behind our paper thank you to everyone involved.
0
2
19
The neurocovid saga continues. In this study we look at indirect effects on CNS functionality in comparison to our earlier studies about neuroinvasion and neuroimmunity. So cool to work with @michelle_monje’s lab and a great partner in @VirusesImmunity’s lab @peowenlu.
#LongCOVID frequently includes cognitive symptoms. Noting the clinical similarities between “chemo-fog” and “COVID-fog”, we asked whether there are also neurobiological similarities, in collaboration with Akiko Iwasaki’s @VirusesImmunity lab @YaleMed. 🧵
1
5
17
Can someone make a covidrxiv? It’s cluttering my science feed.
2
0
18
We will be at #Lymphatic_GRC this week, so stop by and chat with us if you are interested in our ongoing and future work!.
2
1
18
I aspire to be someone who makes my mentees feel hopeful and excited about their dreams each time.
0
1
20
Fun working with @peowenlu my bay mate on this one.
So excited to be a part of this important study led by @michelle_monje on how significant longterm neurologic damage can occur after a mild respiratory-only SARS-CoV-2 infection. My own🧵on the findings of this study with relevance to #longCovid (1/).
0
2
18
@VirusesImmunity @AkankshaMD @NeuroOnc @carolilucas Dr. Sharma, thank you so much for interest in our project! Your question is one we also wondered about, and I am excited to share this data with you!. Luckily, bevacizumab is very specific to VEGF-A and does not have activity towards VEGF-C (attached)!
2
2
17
As always, great @ISNI_neuro seminar by @jonykipnis and extra cool bonus with new, accepted, story on spinal cord injury being shared by @smyth_leon! Highlight was Jony’s description of cells in the brain; Sleeping baby=neurons, party people=immune cells 😂.
0
0
18
Our awesome collaborators (UCSF Wilson lab) mapped out antibodies found in the CSF and Plasma. The current dogma is that circulating antibodies enter the CNS through BBB opening, in which case same antibodies would be found in the two compartments. This was not the case. 11/n
1
3
16
Thank you everyone at #GRC_Neuroimmune for the great questions regarding my project on #Glioblastoma ! Especially thankful for @jonykipnis and @VirusesImmunity for giving me the opportunity to present. Looking forward to more interesting discussions #btsm.
1
0
17
@VirusesImmunity @WeintraubAward @YaleIBIO @YaleMed @YaleMSTP Thank YOU akiko for always supporting me and providing me with all these endless opportunities! I can’t wait till we get to see how our work can help patients with some help from @YaleOCR @NeurologyYale @YaleCancer ;).
1
1
15
@VirusesImmunity talks on Takehiro’s (dermatologist turned neurologist) great story at #NGI2020 !
0
2
15
Brainnnnnnnnnns. 11/12?!.
Great preprint showing SARS-CoV-2 infection and persistence throughout the human body and brain even in patients who died following mild COVID-19. important findings for #MISC #LongCOVID
3
2
16
Awesome how we were able to get our neuroinvasion story with @cezhang0 to people all over the world!. @VirusesImmunity discusses our work on NHK (6:02) .and I got to discuss it on Horizonte, a spanish TV channel (1.32.53).
1
6
15
Lucky to be surrounded by mentors who push me forward just because. Asking for things is a hard thing to learn- and if I had to ask each time, I probably wouldn’t get anywhere.
0
0
16
My favorite study from this past year. What a good way to end our MD PhD time together @YaleMed. We challenge the idea that mutations in IFN pathways are always a protective feature of tumors against immunotherapy. Lots to more to learn and to model for the future.
Excited (and a bit nervous) to share my first study as senior author! @ericsongg and I took a deep dive into whether IFNg signaling gene mutations indeed confer resistance to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Letter in @Cancer_Cell:
0
1
16
Many many patients with brain tumors like #glioblastoma every year. No good treatments, but we are always inching closer! Vote now for Yale nanoparticles for brain tumors #STATMadness2018 @SenJohnMcCain.
1
8
15
My day started with my pants ripping as I reached down for a cage of mice. Ended with semi-interesting data. I guess it’s a good day.
1
0
14
I am especially proud of this story because we not only describe SARS-CoV-2 neuroinflammation, but also used this opportunity to answer several questions about neuroimmunology that was not explored before. 🧠👏 2/n.
1
2
15
Some undergrads covered our VEGF-C paper in their class and shared a video that they made!. So cool. Very rewarding to hear feedback in this way, and amazed at how well they explain the idea of biophysical properties affecting immunity :).
1
1
15
There is a lot of questions around how cytokine storms can affect the brain, so we started with a cytokine panel of matching CSF and plasma from patients. Surprisingly, we noticed that the patients had unique cytokines upregulated in each compartment. 4/n
3
2
15
We were fortunate to have patient volunteers who allowed us to use some extra clinical lumbar puncture samples to study COVID-19 related neuroinflammation. 3/n
2
2
15
Actually, what we found was that in all the patients, the frequency of different antibodies were quite divergent (interestingly, we found that some epitopes were more enriched in the CNS versus Plasma, see above) 12/n
1
3
14
I’ll be talking about some of our recent efforts, come ask me some questions!.
🧠 Learn about the neuroinvasive potential of SARS-CoV-2 in this webinar with Eric Song (@ericsongg) from Dr. Iwasaki's lab (@VirusesImmunity). #COVID19. Register now:
1
3
14
There are so many experiments and ideas that were shared by the community that made the paper happen (see below). So thank you everyone! We look forward to feedback and discussing further what next steps might be in helping the #btsm community!.
2
1
13
We finally use our recently developed mouse model to ask the question does CSF antibodies predict CNS infection?. And we were able to show that a localized CNS infection can result in a localized CNS antibody response! 13/n
1
2
14
Learned from the best @panos_mast in the @JustinHanesPhD lab.
As we approach the cold winter months in the Northern Hemisphere, I want to share these movies of mucociliary clearance (MCC) in the trachea of mice housed at 10% vs. 50% relative humidity (RH). Captured by @ericsongg (1/n). This is MCC at 50% RH 👇🏽
1
1
12
big thanks to Mariella @TheScientistLLC for an excellent summary of our recent findings! I always enjoy reading articles from the scientist and am so happy to see our story featured here.
0
1
15
dr. @dixitvishva talking about the importance of protein based assays. Not everything is detectable by rna! #NGI2020.
2
0
11
Life lessons from cutting hair at home: stop while you’re ahead.
2
0
13
Thanks for the awesome highlights. I agree with you on the coolest experiment 😎.
Fascinating preprint on #SARSCoV2 neurotropism by @VirusesImmunity @ericsongg @YaleIBIO .- lots of ACE2 in human brain organoids.- metabolic demands of infected cells leads to toxicity in neighboring neurons .- coolest experiment 👉🏽 convalescent CSF! .
1
2
11
To see what might be happening in patients, we analyzed available RNA-Seq data and learned that VEGF-C was down-regulated in GBM patients, and a more recently published dataset on neoadjuvant PD-1 trials in GBM showed positive correlation of VEGF-C levels and T cell signatures
1
1
12
Already having FOMO about 2023 #GRC_neuroimmune. Hopefully everyone posts on twitter so I can at least enjoy it here! If you do make it though, checkout Xiangyun's poster and give us some feedback about our project!.
0
1
13
We can probably make a book of Akiko’s tweetorials and eventually make a immunology cheat sheet for med students or even a children’s book for immunology 😂.
1
0
12