ABSTRACT
The intense international focus on the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to use a wide array of novel tools to carry out scientific studies on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The value of these comparative studies extends far beyond their consequences for SARS-CoV-2, providing broad implications for health-related science. Here we specifically discuss the impacts of these comparisons on advances in vaccines, the analysis of host humoral immunity, and antibody discovery. As an extension, we also discuss potential synergies between these areas.Abbreviations: CoVIC: The Coronavirus Immunotherapeutic Consortium; EUA: Emergency Use Authorization.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , SARS-CoV-2 , Antibodies, Viral , COVID-19/epidemiology , Humans , Immunity, Humoral , Pandemics/prevention & controlABSTRACT
As a result of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic numerous scientific groups have generated antibodies against a single target: the CoV-2 spike antigen. This has provided an unprecedented opportunity to compare the efficacy of different methods and the specificities and qualities of the antibodies generated by those methods. Generally, the most potent neutralizing antibodies have been generated from convalescent patients and immunized animals, with non-immune phage libraries usually yielding significantly less potent antibodies. Here, we show that it is possible to generate ultra-potent (IC50 < 2 ng/ml) human neutralizing antibodies directly from a unique semisynthetic naïve antibody library format with affinities, developability properties and neutralization activities comparable to the best from hyperimmune sources. This demonstrates that appropriately designed and constructed naïve antibody libraries can effectively compete with immunization to directly provide therapeutic antibodies against a viral pathogen, without the need for immune sources or downstream optimization.