Ai-ris Yonekura Collier, M.D.

Dr. Ai-ris Yonekura Collier is a physician-scientist specializing in high-risk pregnancy care in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at BIDMC. The goal of her translational research is to characterize the maternal cellular immune phenotype in pregnancy disorders like preeclampsia and fetal growth restriction and in the setting of infectious disease like Zika virus or SARS-CoV-2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was Principal Investigator leading the hospital-wide COVID-19 Biorepository and a co-investigator for the Ad26.COV2.S COVID-19 vaccine booster trial. This work builds upon prior work performing longitudinal observational studies in pregnant individuals exposed or infected with Zika virus and creating large clinical biospecimen repositories for translational immunologic studies in pregnancy. In addition to the work in the CTU, she is an enthusiastic educator and advocate for inclusion of pregnant and lactating individuals in observational and interventional clinical trials.

Dr. Collier obtained her M.D. through the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School where she spent time in the lab of Dr. Shannon Turley, evaluating a novel mechanism of cellular immune tolerance induction by lymph node stroma cells. She is using her background in immune tolerance to study the mechanisms of maternal immune tolerance to the fetus in placenta in healthy and complicated pregnancies. As a Maternal-Fetal Medicine clinician, she represents a cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the CVVR.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, B.S., 2005 (Major: Biology, Minor: Chemistry)

Harvard Medical School/ Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Boston, MA, M.D., 2011 (Medicine)

Training

2011-2015 Resident Obstetrics and Gynecology University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

2015-2018 Clinical Fellow Maternal-Fetal Medicine Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)

Appointments

2018-Present, Staff Physician Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Dept. of Ob-Gyn) Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC)

2018-Present, Physician-Scientist Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, Department of Medicine BIDMC

2018-2022,     Instructor Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

2021-Present, Co-Director Barouch Clinical Trials BIDMC Unit, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, Department of Medicine

2022-Present, Assistant Professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School

Honors

2006, Arthur T. Hertig Research Scholar HMS Research

2008, Academy of Achievement 47th Annual International Summit Student Delegate Academy of Achievement Academic/Leadership

2013, Resident Award for highest CREOG score UCLA Clinical

2014, Resident Award for Excellence in Obstetrics UCLA/ Society for Maternal- Fetal Medicine Clinical

2014, Best Poster Presentation Obstetrical and Gynecological Assembly of Southern California Research

2016, Rookie of the Year Award BIDMC Chief Resident Award Teaching for new OB/GYN faculty

2017, Best Perinatology Trainee Presentation New England Perinatology Society Research

2018-2020, NIH Loan Repayment Program (LRP) NIH/NICHD Research

2021, Mentor Award ACOG, District I Teaching

2021, Rapid peer review award BIDMC Chief Resident Award Teaching, Research

2022, Translational Research Hubs Spark Grant Award

Publications

• Collier, A. Y., McMahan, K., Jacob-Dolan, C., Liu, J., Borducchi, E. N., Moss, B., & Barouch, D. H. (2024). Decline of Mpox Antibody Responses After Modified Vaccinia Ankara-Bavarian Nordic Vaccination. JAMA, 332(19), 1669–1672. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2024.20951 [Article]


• Joseph P Nkolola, Jinyan Liu, Ai-ris Y Collier, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Yasmeen Senussi, Ella Borberg, Zoe Swank, David R Walt, Dan H Barouch, High Frequency of Prior Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection by Sensitive Nucleocapsid Assays, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 230, Issue 3, 15 September 2024, Pages e601–e604, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiae174 [Article]


• Rowe M, Collier AY, Barouch DH. Insights from an observational translational research program during the COVID-19 pandemic: Four years of experience. Vaccine. 2024 Oct 24;42(24):126306. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.126306. Epub 2024 Sep 5. PMID: 39241351; PMCID: PMC11401756. [Article]


• Joseph P Nkolola, Jinyan Liu, Ai-ris Y Collier, Catherine Jacob-Dolan, Yasmeen Senussi, Ella Borberg, Zoe Swank, David R Walt, Dan H Barouch, High Frequency of Prior Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection by Sensitive Nucleocapsid Assays, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2024;, jiae174, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiae174 [Article]


• Lasrado N, Rössler A, Rowe M, Collier AY, Barouch DH. Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant BA.2.87.1. Vaccine. 2024 Apr 2;42(9):2117-2121. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.03.007. Epub 2024 Mar 7. PMID: 38458874. [Article]


• Lasrado N, Collier AY, Hachmann NP, Miller J, Rowe M, Schonberg ED, Rodrigues SL, LaPiana A, Patio RC, Anand T, Fisher J, Mazurek CR, Guan R, Wagh K, Theiler J, Korber BT, Barouch DH. Neutralization escape by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant BA.2.86. Vaccine. 2023 Nov 13;41(47):6904-6909. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.10.051. Epub 2023 Oct 21. PMID: 37872011. [Article]


• Aid M, Stephenson KE, Collier AY, Nkolola JP, Michael JV, McKenzie SE, Barouch DH. Activation of coagulation and proinflammatory pathways in thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome and following COVID-19 vaccination. Nat Commun. 2023 Oct 23;14(1):6703. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-42559-x. PMID: 37872311; PMCID: PMC10593859. [Article]


• Collier AY, Modest AM, Aguayo RA, Bondzie EA, Patel S, Hacker MR, Barouch DH. Altered Cytokine Production in Human Intervillous Blood T Cells in Preeclampsia. Reprod Sci. 2023 Sep;30(9):2655-2664. doi: 10.1007/s43032-023-01165-4. Epub 2023 Feb 7. PMID: 36749459; PMCID: PMC10404629. [Article]


• Redhunt AM, Ledyard R, Collier AY, Hacker MR, Burris HH. Resilience as a potential modifier of racial inequities in preterm birth. Ann Epidemiol. 2023 Jul;83:54-59.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2023.04.010. Epub 2023 Apr 22. PMID: 37088321; PMCID: PMC10330189. [Article]


• Bartsch YC, Cizmeci D, Kang J, Gao H, Shi W, Chandrashekar A, Collier AY, Chen B, Barouch DH, Alter G. Selective SARS-CoV2 BA.2 escape of antibody Fc/Fc-receptor interactions. iScience. 2023 May 19;26(5):106582. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106582. Epub 2023 Apr 7. PMID: 37082529; PMCID: PMC10079316. [Article]