Susan Weiss

Susan R. Weiss is an American microbiologist who is a Professor of Microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds vice chair positions for the Department of Microbiology and for Faculty Development. Her research considers the biology of coronaviruses, including SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2. As of March 2020, Weiss serves as Co-Director of the University of Pennsylvania/Penn Medicine Center for Research on Coronavirus and Other Emerging Pathogens.

Early life and education Weiss attended Roosevelt High School. She eventually studied biology at Brandeis University and graduated in 1971 with her B.A. She moved to Harvard University for her doctoral research, where she studied Virulent Newcastle disease. Weiss started studying coronaviruses during her postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco. At the time, very little was known about the impact of coronaviruses, other than that they can cause the common cold in humans. These coronaviruses have all evolved to shut down immune responses but have different accessory proteins. Coronaviruses are complex viruses that circulate in animals and occasionally infect humans. They have the largest RNA genome of any viruses, which indicates that they have a wide array of proteins that can attack host cells. She uses a reverse genetic system to better manipulate the viral genome. Reverse genetics helps to understand the function of a gene through the analysis of phenotypic effects of nucleic acid sequences. She looks to understand what determines coronavirus viral and cellular tropism, as well as better understanding the pathogenesis of coronavirus in the brain. The Center looks to accelerate research that focuses on SARS-CoV-2, become a centralized repository of SARS-CoV-2 research and create new opportunities to fund research relating to SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 is different to SARS; as there are many people who have mild or asymptomatic coronavirus disease without being aware that they have it. Whereas in the case of SARS, patients were too unwell to leave their homes, so they tended to self-isolate, and the virus was most transmissible from severely ill patients rather than asymptomatic ones. the innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and critical reviews of scientific evidence for the origin of SARS-CoV-2.

Weiss' work and expertise has been featured in the science podcast This Week in Virology in both 2020 and 2021. As of 2024, she is a fellow and a current governor of the American Academy of Microbiology, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2023 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Selected publications Ku Z, Xie X, Davidson E, Ye X, Su H, Menachery VD, Li Y, Yuan Z, Zhang X, Muruato AE, I Escuer AG, Tyrell B, Doolan K, Doranz BJ, Wrapp D, Bates PF, McLellan JS, Weiss SR, Zhang N, Shi PY, An Z. Molecular determinants and mechanism for antibody cocktail preventing SARS-CoV-2 escape. Nat Commun. 2021 Jan 20;12(1):469. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20789-7.