Ms Chun Ye Yu, Jade

Jade’s research focuses on investigating how the diverse capsular polysaccharide (CPS) of Streptococcus pneumoniae stimulates the host's innate and adaptive immune responses differently. Given that CPS plays a critical role in the pathogenicity of this bacterium and is a key target of existing vaccines, she is greatly inspired by its potential to make significant contributions to the development of improved preventive and therapeutic strategies in this field. Jade is the 1st runner-up in poster presentation at the 2022 Annual Biomedical Scientific Congress (ABSC) organized by the NUSMed Graduate Students’ Society and has also participated in the the 10th FEMS Congress of European Microbiologists (2023) held by the Federation of European Microbiological Societies.

She has published the article titled “Influence of glycan structure on colonization of Streptococcus pneumoniae on human respiratory epithelial cells”. Jade’s first author article is featured on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), a prestigious peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal.

Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as the pneumococcus, is the primary bacterial cause of community-acquired pneumonia, resulting in nearly a million child deaths worldwide each year. One of the most well-established virulence factors of pneumococcus is the capsular polysaccharide (CPS), which provides protection to the bacteria against host immunity. Due to its clinical significance, CPS is the target for existing pneumococcal vaccines. Although epidemiological studies suggest that serotypes influence pneumococcal carriage, how the CPS composition and configuration impact colonization remains unclear. To address this question, Ms Chun and research team created 84 isogenic capsule-switch mutants and assessed the strains' ability to bind to human nasal epithelial cells (hNECs) and bronchial epithelial cells (hBECs).