Faculty

Helen Y Chu

Professor, Epidemiology
Professor, Medicine - Allergy and Infectious Dis.
Program Lead, Infectious Disease, Brotman Baty Institute, Medicine - Allergy and Infectious Dis.
Term Professorship, Medicine - Allergy and Infectious Dis.
Associate Dean for Research, School of Public Health


Education

MPH Epidemiology, University of Washington, 2012
MD Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, 2005
BA Cornell University, 2001

Research Areas

Research Interests

Dr. Chu's research is focused on maternal immunization, in particular vaccines against influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). She studies the virologic and immunologic correlates of protection from respiratory viral infections in pregnant women, infants, and older adults, and performs clinical trials of vaccine candidates in both domestic and international sites, including Nepal and Bangladesh. She has developed immunologic assays to study transplacental transfer and decay kinetics of RSV antibody, and nosocomial and household transmission of respiratory viruses by genotypic analysis and molecular sequencing.

Recent Publications (PubMed)

Repeated COVID-19 vaccine boosters elicit variant-specific memory B cells in humans.
(2025 Oct 20)
bioRxiv
Tortorici MA, Sprouse KR, Addetia A, Brown JT, Harteloo A, Elias-Warren A, Chu HY, Veesler D
Evaluation of Interventions for Cognitive Symptoms in Long COVID: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
(2025 Nov 10)
JAMA Neurol
Knopman DS, Koltai D, Laskowitz D, Becker J, Charvet L, Wisnivesky J, Federman A, Silverstein A, Lokhnygina Y, Pilloni G, Haddad M, Mahncke H, Van Vleet T, Huang R, Cox W, Terry D, Karwowski J, McCray N, Lin JJ, McComsey GA, Singh U, Geng LN, Chu HY, Reece R, Moy J, Arvanitakis Z, Parthasarathy S, Patterson TF, Gupta A, Ostrosky-Zeichner L, Parsonnet J, Kiriakopoulos ET, Fong TG, Mullington J, Jolley S, Shah NS, Morimoto SS, Lee-Iannotti JK, Killgore WDS, Dwyer B, Stringer W, Isache C, Frontera JA, Krishnan JA, O'Steen A, James M, Harper BL, Zimmerman KO, RECOVER-NEURO Clinical Trial Group
A promise fulfilled: Updates on respiratory syncytial virus vaccines and monoclonal antibodies.
(2025 Nov 4)
J Allergy Clin Immunol
Murray A, Chu HY
Impact of Influenza Vaccination during Pregnancy on Maternal Influenza Disease Severity in Rural Nepal.
(2025 Nov 6)
Am J Trop Med Hyg
Frivold C, Katz J, Lama TP, Tielsch JM, Khatry SK, LeClerq SC, Carone M, John-Stewart G, Khosropour CM, Englund JA, Chu HY
Generation of antigen-specific paired-chain antibodies using large language models.
(2025 Nov 4)
Cell
Wasdin PT, Johnson NV, Janke AK, Held S, Marinov TM, Jordaan G, Gillespie RA, Vandenabeele L, Pantouli F, Powers OC, Vukovich MJ, Holt CM, Kim J, Hansman G, Logue J, Chu HY, Andrews SF, Kanekiyo M, Sautto GA, Ross TM, Sheward DJ, McLellan JS, Abu-Shmais AA, Georgiev IS
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