MADISON – The prestigious Johns Hopkins University has published a research article by Gitanjali Alapati, a student at James Clemens High School.

“We are very proud of her,” Leah McRae said. McRae teaches human body structures and functions, genetics, human body systems, and medical interventions in the Biomedical Science Academy.

“I’ve got to brag here. Gitanjali is one of my current students in Biomedical Science. She has not graduated yet, but you’ve just got to read her article. I actually teach a student who just got published by Johns Hopkins University!” McRae said.

Alapati’s article, “An Analysis of the Virus Behind COVID-19: A Surprise that Was Always Coming,” was published on the Global Health and Leadership Conference page of Johns Hopkins University. Her article examines the virology of the COVID-19 virus.

In her report, Alapati states, “SARS-CoV-2 maintains a similar profile to SARS-CoV in terms of susceptible cell lines. (Harcourt et al, 2020 Jun). … The antibodies of SARS CoV-1 cross interact with the S protein of SARS CoV-2, further emphasizing the similarity between the two.”

“So now we ask the question: why don’t we use the same vaccines and antibodies against SARS CoV-2 that were once used against SARS CoV-1? The answer lies in the fact that, even though both of these viruses show great similarities in the S protein, the S1 subunit of this protein, the main region where the vaccines and the antibodies were observed to show effect in SARS CoV-1, is different in both of them (Ou et al,. 2020, March 27),” Alapati said.

Alapati found that the trend of the COVID-19 pandemic that is associated with the coronavirus virus is showing a decent gap of about one decade or so for each time. “It is a new mutated version. SARS CoV-1 had its attack in 2002-2003, while MERS had its attack in 2012, and now we have COVID-19 in 2019-2020,” she said.

“It is being suggested that the new virus is not laboratory made but instead a form of natural selection that is associated with the origin from the coronaviruses observed in bats and pangolins,” Alapati said.

For more information, visit glohea.org/global-health-student-articles.