Ayaka Sakamoto

This study identifies the non-spike R204P mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron XEC variant as a driver of increased inflammation and pathogenicity through NF-κB activation.

This paper introduces CoVFit, a protein language model that predicts SARS-CoV-2 variant fitness using spike protein sequences, identifying fitness-enhancing mutations and predicting emerging variants.

This study investigates the virological properties of the SARS-CoV-2 HK.3 variant, a FLip variant with substitutions S:L455F and S:F456L, to assess its growth advantage.