Editor's Note: As of Dec. 9, 2020 Lee and Imran were named the winner's of the 2020 research symposium in the Master's Category for their research project on vaccines.
Big pharma companies like Pfizer and Moderna have been in the news recently for their vaccines in development to fight COVID-19.
Yet, other groups are also studying immunity and how people respond differently to vaccines.
Students at Florida Atlantic University are beginning to research smokers’ immune response to vaccines. A pair of those students will be showcasing their research project at the 10th annual FAU Broward student research symposium this month and the 2020 edition is all virtual.
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Mahyar Nouri-Shirazi, D.V.M., Ph.D. teaches classes about, and researches, immunity at FAU.
When he initially began his research he had no idea the coronavirus pandemic would make his work all the more timely. He's studying conditions that show changes in smokers' immune cell memory.
"We have discovered over many years that the nicotine component of cigarette smoke suppresses the immune system and make the vaccines less responsive," he said. "So we are trying to understand how those changes [are] gonna happen."
Czdari Lee, 24, is getting her masters focusing on biomedical sciences at FAU. Lee explains when it comes to fighting pandemics like COVID-19, "it's even more important now that we find a vaccine that has, hopefully, 100% effectiveness."
"So that those who are eligible for vaccines will be able to protect themselves and others that can't receive vaccines," Lee said.
Because people who smoke (which includes vaping and vape products) have a reduced response to current vaccines, Lee and her undergraduate student partner, Imtisal Imran, 17, (a dual-enrolled senior at FAU High School) argue that for any COVID-19 vaccine to be effective it has to also work for smokers too.
"What sticks out to me the most ... if vaccines aren't effective in smokers then it's kind of detrimental to immunocompromised individuals around them as well," Imran said. "What we want to do is to study the mechanism of immunosuppression in smokers and hopefully, you know, explore the possibility of refining current and future vaccines to work more effectively in smoker populations."
Their project is titled, "Establishment of culture conditions to asses preexisting immunity to childhood Immunizations."
And the students argue: "Our data indicates that these culture conditions could be utilized to monitor the changes in immune status of smokers and their responses to vaccines."
Up next for the team, which has worked through their own difficulty of conducting their research with limited access to a lab during the shutdowns, is to secure more funding to continue and work with blood samples.
"We just started," Nouri-Shirazi said. "I think in the near future, when the COVID-19 vaccine is available and people start getting the vaccine, we are very much interested to expand this study and look at the blood sample of the smoker/non-smoker and their responses to the COVID-19 vaccine."
You can register here to participate and view this year's FAU research symposium — the registration deadline is Wednesday. You can also email the campus organizer for this event, slalla@fau.edu, with questions about how to see the presentations.
