Genomic Integration of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus and the Potential Relevance for the Course of COVID-19

In this talk, Rudolf Jaenish will summarize the stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection and highlight some puzzling observations. These include the recurrence of PCR-positive tests in patients that have cleared all infectious virus and the long-term complications of the infection (also known as Long-Covid). He will discuss his lab’s evidence for genomic integration of SARS-CoV-2 sequences in cultured cells as well as in patients. One question has been whether vaccine RNA can also integrate into the genome and he will discuss their preliminary results suggesting that vaccine RNA does not integrate.