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Publication
Journal of Immunology

Evaluating COVID-19 severity prediction and immune dynamics with NULISAseq: Insights from the IMPACC study

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  • October 30, 2025
  • Holden Maecker, et al., Stanford University School of Medicine
Topic/Product:
Immunology, Infectious Disease, Inflammation, Inflammation Panel 250
Disease Area:
COVID-19
Sample Type:
Serum

Abstract

The National Institutes of Health–funded IMPACC (IMmunoPhenotyping Assessment in a COVID-19 Cohort) evaluated longitudinal clinical and immunological features of human patients hospitalized for COVID-19. This study focuses on comparing the novel NULISAseq assay with the Olink platform using a subset of participants to assess their efficacy in predicting COVID-19 severity and understanding immune response dynamics. Our findings reveal that NULISAseq could provide superior detectability and dynamic range across various targets. Elastic net analysis demonstrated that specific proteins, including amphiregulin, effectively predict COVID-19 severity from sera at admission (samples drawn within 96 h of admission), with a test area under the curve of 0.84. Longitudinal analysis identified significant differences in multiple targets, including IL-5 and interferons, between low- and high-severity groups over time. Additionally, association rule mining suggested potential early markers predictive of later immune cell changes. These findings emphasize the potential of NULISAseq for comprehensive profiling, early prediction, and identification of targeted therapeutic interventions in COVID-19.

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Authors & Affiliations

Koji Abe¹, Tyson H. Holmes¹, Tran T. Nguyen¹, IMPACC Network, Seunghee Kim-Schulze², Ofer Levy³, Lindsey R. Baden⁴, Esther Melamed⁵, Lauren I. R. Ehrlich⁵, Grace A. McComsey⁶, Rafick P. Sekaly⁶, Charles B. Cairns⁷, Elias K. Haddad⁷, Albert C. Shaw⁸, David A. Hafler⁸, Ruth R. Montgomery⁸, David B. Corry⁹, Farrah Kheradmand⁹, Mark A. Atkinson¹⁰, Scott C. Brakenridge¹⁰, Nelson I. Agudelo Higuita¹¹, Jordan P. Metcalf¹¹, Catherine L. Hough¹², William B. Messer¹², Bali Pulendran¹, Kari C. Nadeau¹, Mark M. Davis¹, Ana Fernandez-Sesma², Viviana Simon², Monica Kraft¹³, Chris Bime¹³, Carolyn S. Calfee¹⁴, David J. Erle¹⁴, Joanna Schaenman¹⁵, Elaine F. Reed¹⁵, Al Ozonoff¹⁶, Bjoern Peters¹⁷, Steven H. Kleinstein⁸, Alison D. Augustine¹⁸, Joann Diray-Arce¹⁶, Patrice M. Becker¹⁸, Nadine Rouphael¹⁹, and Holden T. Maecker¹

¹ Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA, United States
² Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, United States
³ Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
⁴ Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
⁵ The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States
⁶ Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, United States
⁷ Tower Health Hospital, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United States
⁸ Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States
⁹ Baylor College of Medicine and the Center for Translational Research on Inflammatory Diseases, Houston, TX, United States
¹⁰ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States
¹¹ Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, United States
¹² Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, United States
¹³ University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States
¹⁴ University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
¹⁵ David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States
¹⁶ Clinical and Data Coordinating Center, Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
¹⁷ La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, United States
¹⁸ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States
¹⁹ Emory School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States

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Steve Williams, MD, PhD

CSO

Dr. Willams serves as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer. He was previously Chief Medical Officer at Standard Biotools and at SomaLogic where he pioneered the discipline for discovery and validation of predictive, diagnostic and prognostic models using machine-learning applied to large-plex proteomics. 20 such tests were used for drug characterization, safety and efficacy when incorporated in clinical drug trials at Pharma/Biotech and 17 different multivariate tests were validated and translated into regulated healthcare uses. Prior to SomaLogic, Dr. Williams was at Pfizer in the UK and the USA as a clinical triallist in Translational Medicine, and subsequently as VP, Global Clinical Technology. He sat on the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the Executive Committee for the FNIH Biomarkers Consortium, and worked with FDA and PhRMA on developing evidentiary standards for biomarker qualification. Dr. William’s medical training was in London, at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School, followed by a PhD in medicine/physiology at the same institution and training in Radiology at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Steve is co-inventor on 26 proteomics patents and author/coauthor on multiple foundational proteomics manuscripts.

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Justin McAnear

CFO

Mr. McAnear serves as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. He brings over 25 years of operational and financial leadership experience across various sectors and was instrumental in taking 10x Genomics public in 2019, serving as its CFO for over five years. Mr. McAnear served for over 3 years as Tesla’s VP of Worldwide Finance and Operations, supporting landmark initiatives such as the Model X and Model 3 launches and Solar City acquisition.  He also held various roles at Apple and J&J earlier in his career and served as a naval officer and aviator for over 9 years.