What Pseudoviruses Bring to the Study of SARS-CoV-2

Engineered viruses that don’t replicate provide a tractable model for scientists to safely study SARS-CoV-2, including research into vaccine efficacy and emerging variants.

Written byAmanda Heidt

| 7 min read

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COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, pandemic, pseudovirus, chimeric virus, disease & medicine, techniques, HIV, VSV, vaccine, variants, mutations

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When SARS-CoV-2 first began spreading across the globe, not every lab was equipped to study it directly. The virus behind the current pandemic is highly pathogenic and transmissible, leading the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to require many of the same biosafety guidelines that shape the study of diseases such as tuberculosis and Ebola.

As in many moments throughout the last year, the scientific community responded by creatively adapting existing tools to the study of COVID-19. Among these, researchers turned to models of the pathogen such as pseudoviruses and chimeric viruses that can be studied safely in labs with lower biosafety level (BSL) clearance than required for studying the wildtype version, in an effort to expand the study of the novel coronavirus. Pseudoviruses don’t replicate, rendering them harmless, but by replacing their surface envelope proteins with those of SARS-CoV-2, researchers can glean insights ...

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Meet the Author

Amanda Heidt
Amanda first began dabbling in scicom as a master’s student studying marine science at Moss Landing Marine Labs, where she edited the student blog and interned at a local NPR station. She enjoyed that process of demystifying science so much that after receiving her degree in 2019, she went straight into a second master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Formerly an intern at The Scientist, Amanda joined the team as a staff reporter and editor in 2021 and oversaw the publication’s internship program, assigned and edited the Foundations, Scientist to Watch, and Short Lit columns, and contributed original reporting across the publication. Amanda’s stories often focus on issues of equity and representation in academia, and she brings this same commitment to DEI to the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains and to the board of the National Association of Science Writers, which she has served on since 2022. She is currently based in the outdoor playground that is Moab, Utah. Read more of her work at www.amandaheidt.com.
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