Kei Sato

This study determines the structure of the 2026 Bundibugyo virus glycoprotein and identifies conserved epitopes for antibody therapeutics and pan-ebolavirus vaccines.

This paper introduces a Rheo-NMR platform to analyze amyloid formation kinetics in real-time and provides insights into environment-dependent aggregation pathways.

This study analyzes poxvirus gene repertoires and finds that they evolve through expansion-biased birth-and-death dynamics and genome architectural constraints.

This study identifies key ACE2 residues that influence sarbecovirus infectivity in African Rhinolophus bats and reports novel ACE2 sequences from R. simulator and R. blasii.

The paper identifies novel SARS-CoV-2-related viruses in Cambodian bats, revealing genetic diversity and potential zoonotic risk through receptor-binding domain analysis and pseudovirus assays.

The paper analyzes pangolin coronaviruses to identify a key immuno-evasive mutation at spike residue 519, similar to SARS-CoV-2, suggesting independent spillover events from bat reservoirs.

This study experimentally infects horseshoe bats with SARS-CoV-2, showing low-level persistent viral replication without disease, and identifies host mechanisms that enable viral coexistence.

The paper develops a host-response-based framework to detect viral infections by analyzing ISG expression in RNA-seq data from diverse species, revealing hidden infections missed by conventional methods.

This study evaluates the neutralizing antibody response induced by XEC-based monovalent vaccines against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, showing enhanced immunity against JN.1 subvariants compared to other variants.

This study introduces a pLM entropy metric to assess protein site conservation and variability, showing that fine-tuning pLMs on evolutionarily related proteins improves their ability to capture context-specific site variation.

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 study evaluates the humoral immune response induced by LP.8.1-based vaccines against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, showing effective cross-neutralization and immune boosting.

This study identifies ACE2 diversity in horseshoe bats and shows bidirectional evolutionary shaping between ACE2 and sarbecovirus spike proteins.

This study identifies structural and phenotypic changes in the RBD loop2 region of HKU5r-CoVs as key factors enabling their emergence in mink and potential zoonotic transmission.

This study investigates the ACE2 tropism of sarbecoviruses across 17 mammals using pseudovirus assays, structural analysis, and phylogenetics to identify genetic factors influencing host range.

This study uses a protein language model to map influenza virus antigenicity from genotype data, revealing evolutionary patterns and improving vaccine strain selection.

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 evolutionary changes from BA.2.86 to JN.1, showing that non-spike protein mutations compensate for reduced spike protein replication, enhancing viral fitness.

This study compares the antiviral humoral immunity induced by two JN.1 monovalent mRNA vaccines against multiple SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants and XEC, showing both vaccines boost immunity with statistical significance.

This study analyzes the virological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 XEC variant, showing it has higher infectivity and immune evasion compared to KP.3.1.1, contributing to its higher reproductive number and potential dominance.

This paper investigates the virological properties of the SARS-CoV-2 KP.3.1.1 variant, finding it has higher transmissibility and immune evasion compared to KP.3.

The paper investigates the virological features of the SARS-CoV-2 EG.5.1 variant, finding its fitness and antiviral sensitivity comparable to XBB.1.5, with structural differences in spike proteins.

This study evaluates the virological properties of SARS-CoV-2 variants KP.3, LB.1, and KP.2.3, finding higher reproduction numbers and immune evasion compared to JN.1.

This study investigates the virological properties of the SARS-CoV-2 KP.2 variant, finding it has higher viral fitness and immune resistance compared to JN.1, contributing to its rapid spread.

This study introduces AkaBLI, a method using Akaluc bioluminescence to track SARS-CoV-2 infection in vivo with higher sensitivity than NanoLuc, showing its utility in monitoring viral dynamics and vaccine efficacy.

This study examines virological parameters of SARS-CoV-2 variants correlating with spike protein fusogenicity, finding strong links with S1/S2 cleavage efficiency and plaque size.

The paper evaluates the effect of the H47Y mutation in ORF7a of SARS-CoV-2 BF.5 and BF.7 sublineages on its three main functions, finding it impairs IFN-I antagonism and MHC-I downregulation but not anti-SERINC5 function.

The paper analyzes the virological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 XBB.1.5 variant, showing reduced pathogenicity and impaired MHC expression due to mutations in ORF8 and S.

This study investigates the virological characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 BA.2.86 variant, finding it has higher reproduction number than EG.5.1 but lower pathogenicity and replication capacity compared to BA.2.

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.