Professor, Medicine - Allergy and Infectious Dis.,
University of Washington
Dr. Chu’s research is focused on preventive interventions against influenza, RSV and emerging respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2. She conducts clinical-translational research on vaccines, antivirals, and diagnostics for respiratory viruses. She is also interested in defining immune correlates of protection against respiratory viruses and describing mechanisms of maternal-fetal immunity against respiratory viruses.
Dr. Chu was a Multiple Principal Investigator of the Seattle Flu Study, which first identified COVID-19 community transmission in the United States. She is a Co-Investigator for the Vaccine Trials and Evaluation Unit (VTEU) and was Site Principal Investigator for the ACTT-1 trial, which evaluated Remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Chu led the SARS-CoV-2 testing program for the University of Washington which provided testing to over 40,000 faculty, staff, and students. She also leveraged the testing platform to understand the dynamics of viral transmission in university populations, and to evaluate the effects of testing, masking, and vaccines on mitigation of spread.
Currently, Dr. Chu is Multiple Principal Investigator for the CDC-funded Cascadia study, a five-year population vaccine-effectiveness study of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in children in the Pacific Northwest. Beginning in February 2020, her group initiated a prospective observational study of COVID-19 survivors, the longest-standing cohort in the US, and continues to leverage this cohort to describe long COVID in outpatient populations and has conducted studies yielding important insights into protective immunity from vaccines and infections. She also continues to study long COVID as a site PI for the NIH RECOVER consortium.
