Isabella Eckerle

Eckerle was born in Speyer, Rhineland-Palatinate.[1] As a child she wanted to be a veterinarian or a field biologist, but ended up studying medicine at Heidelberg University.[1] During her final year of medical school she visited Africa, which inspired her to work in infectious diseases.[1] She decided to specialises in tropical pathogens, and spent her early medical career working in the Department of Tropical Medicine at the University Hospital Heidelberg. As a junior doctor Eckerle investigated the pathogenesis of travellers returning to Germany from abroad. She focussed on viruses of zoonotic origin.[1]

Eckerle moved to the University of Bonn Institute of Virology, where she worked with Christian Drosten on emerging zoonotic viruses.[2] Here Eckerle studied renal epithelial cell lines of various reservoir hosts, including bats, rodents and insectivores.[3] Until the works of Eckerle, the isolation of bat-borne viruses in cell culture had been challenging. Eckerle created an experimental approach to instantly freeze the organs of specimens, so-called cryo-conservation, allowing her access to cells from a variety of rare species. She visited Ghana and Gabon as part of field work missions to study and collect bat species.[1]

In 2018 Eckerle was made a Professor at the University of Geneva, where she studies exotic cell lines. Eckerle works with other physicians, veterinarians and microbiologists, to better understand the epidemiology of emerging viruses.[4] Eckerle looks to develop cell culture models to better understand the epidemiology of emerging diseases.[4] She has made use of artificial intelligence to generate the cell lines of small mammals from a diverse range of geographical locations, and then allows viruses to replicate in these algorithm-generated cell cultures in controlled laboratory setting. Using these cell lines, Eckerle demonstrated that ungulates, including goats and camels, were likely intermediate hosts of middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).[5]

At the Geneva University Hospitals, she is co-head of the Center for Emerging Viral Diseases.[6]

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eckerle was one of several Swiss physicians who requested access to the Early Warning and Response System; the European Union's network that looks to track the spread of infectious diseases.[7] She argued that better epidemiology, pathogenesis and treatment options were essential in the global fight against coronavirus disease.[8] In late April 2020, a serological antibody test in Geneva revealed that only 5.5% of the population had been exposed to the disease, which Eckerle described as "smaller than hoped for,".[9] Eckerle investigated the different responses of adults and children to coronavirus disease.[10][11] In particular, Eckerle studied the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tracts of neonates, children and teenagers. In early May, Eckerle reported that children who fell ill with coronavirus disease were just as infectious as adults.[12][13] She investigated the viral loads of children and adults, and showed that whilst children can have a more mild form of the disease, there was little difference between the number of SARS-CoV-2 particles carried by adults and children.[14] She was awarded funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation to investigate the reaction of the pulmonary epithelium to SARS-CoV-2 infection, in an effort to create diagnostic guidelines that help healthcare workers evaluate whether someone will contract a mild or severe form of disease.[15]

• Corman, V.M. (Victor) Eckerle, I. Bleicker, T. Zaki, A. Landt, O. Eschbach-Bludau, M. (Monika) Boheemen, S. (Sander) van Gopal, R. (Robin) Ballhause, M. Bestebroer, T.M. (Theo) Muth, D. Müller, M.A. (Marcel) Drexler, J.-F. (Jan-Felix) Zambon, M.C. (Maria) Osterhaus, A.D.M.E. (Albert) Fouchier, R.A.M. (Ron) Drosten, C. (Christian) (2012-09-01). "Detection of a novel human coronavirus by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction". Euro Surveillance. 17 (39). doi:10.2807/ese.17.39.20285-en. OCLC 957098828. PMID 23041020.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Müller, Marcel A.; Raj, V. Stalin; Muth, Doreen; Meyer, Benjamin; Kallies, Stephan; Smits, Saskia L.; Wollny, Robert; Bestebroer, Theo M.; Specht, Sabine; Suliman, Tasnim; Zimmermann, Katrin (2012-12-31). "Human Coronavirus EMC Does Not Require the SARS-Coronavirus Receptor and Maintains Broad Replicative Capability in Mammalian Cell Lines". mBio. 3 (6). doi:10.1128/mBio.00515-12. ISSN 2150-7511. PMC 3520110. PMID 23232719.
• Eckerle, Isabella; Corman, Victor M.; Müller, Marcel A.; Lenk, Matthias; Ulrich, Rainer G.; Drosten, Christian (February 2014). "Replicative Capacity of MERS Coronavirus in Livestock Cell Lines". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 20 (2): 276–9. doi:10.3201/eid2002.131182. ISSN 1080-6040. PMC 3901466. PMID 24457147.