IMMUNOLOGY2026™ Conference Recordings For Attendees-Systems Immunology of Long Covid: Insights from the STOP-PASC Clinical Trial

Systems Immunology of Long Covid: Insights from the STOP-PASC Clinical Trial

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Evan Maestri, a Stanford PhD student in computational immunology, presented findings from the STOP-PASC clinical trial on long COVID. The trial tested a 15-day course of Paxlovid versus placebo in mostly vaccinated participants about 17.5 months after infection. Although the drug did not improve long COVID symptoms such as fatigue or brain fog, the team examined whether it altered immune markers. They found no meaningful changes in SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, EBV reactivation, or a broad long-COVID proteomic signature. A small subset of patients (about 5&ndash;7%) showed autoantibodies linked to scleroderma, but this did not correlate with greater symptom severity. Paxlovid caused only transient immune-protein changes at day 15 that disappeared by week 10. Overall, the talk emphasized that long COVID likely involves heterogeneous biology, including autoimmunity and post-acute inflammation, and that better objective biomarkers and alternative treatments are needed.

Meta Tag

Date April 15, 2026 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

Room 151

Session Immunological -omics Analysis

Speaker Evan Maestri

Track Computational and Systems Immunology (COMP)

Year 2026

Keywords

long COVID

Paxlovid

STOP-PASC clinical trial

autoantibodies

immune biomarkers

April 15, 2026 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

151

Immunological -omics Analysis

Evan Maestri

Computational and Systems Immunology (COMP)

2026