Source: COVID-19 Antibodies Jun 16, 2020 3 years, 10 months, 1 week, 2 days, 4 hours, 31 minutes ago
COVID-19 Antibodies: A team led by Scripps Research including scientists from University of California-SanDiego, University Of Washington, Harvard University and
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)-New York has discovered a type of antibodies in the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients that provide powerful protection against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus when tested in animals and human cell cultures.
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The study findings published in
the journal: Science, offers a paradigm of swift reaction to an emergent and deadly viral pandemic, and sets the stage for clinical trials and additional tests of the antibodies, which are now being produced as potential treatments and preventives for COVID-19.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/06/15/science.abc7520
Research co-senior author Dr Dennis Burton, Ph.D., the James and Jessie Minor Chair in Immunology in the Department of Immunology & Microbiology at Scripps Research told Thailand Medical News, "The discovery of these very potent antibodies represents an extremely rapid response to a totally new pathogen."
Injections of such antibodies could be given to patients in the early stage of COVID-19 to reduce the level of virus and protect against severe disease. The antibodies also may be used to provide temporary, vaccine-like protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection for healthcare workers, elderly people and others who respond poorly to traditional vaccines or are suspected of a recent exposure to the coronavirus.
Typically one approach to new viral threats is to identify, in the blood of recovering patients, antibodies that neutralize the virus's ability to infect cells.
Such antibodies can then be mass-produced, using biotech methods, as a treatment that blocks severe disease and as a vaccine-like preventive that circulates in the blood for several weeks to protect against infection. This approach already has been demonstrated successfully against Ebola virus and the pneumonia-causing respiratory syncytial virus, commonly known as RSV.
In this research project, the researchers took blood samples from patients who had recovered from mild-to-severe COVID-19. In parallel, scientists at Scripps Research and IAVI developed test cells that express ACE2, the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into human cells. In a set of initial experiments, the team tested whether antibody-containing blood from the patients could bind to the virus and strongly block it from infecting the test cells.
The research team was able to isolate more than 1,000 distinct antibody-producing immune cells, called B cells, each of which produced a distinct anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody. The team obtained the antibody gene sequences from these B cells so that they could produce the antibodies in the laboratory. By screening these antibodies individually, the team identified several that, even in tiny quantities, could block the virus in test cells, and one that could also protect hamsters against heavy viral exposure.
All research efforts including the development of the cell and animal infection models, and studies to discover where the antibodies of inte
rest bind the virus was completed in less than seven weeks.
Study co-author Elise Landais, Ph.D., an IAVI principal scientist said, "We leveraged our institution's decades of expertise in antibody isolation and quickly pivoted our focus to SARS-CoV-2 to identify these highly potent antibodies."
Once further safety tests in animals and clinical trials in humans go well, then conceivably the antibodies could be used in clinical settings as early as next January, the researchers say.
The researcher said, "We intend to make them available to those who need them most, including people in low- and middle-income countries."
Interestingly In the course of their attempts to isolate anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from the COVID-19 patients, the team found one that can also neutralize SARS-CoV, the related coronavirus that caused the 2002-2004 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Asia.
The team said, "That discovery gives us hope that we will eventually find broadly neutralizing antibodies that provide at least partial protection against all or most SARS coronaviruses, which should be useful if another one jumps to humans.”
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