New Monoclonal Antibodies Show Promise in Fight Against COVID-19

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Nashville, TN, USA) have identified potently neutralizing antibodies that are showing promise as a potential therapy for preventing and treating COVID-19 in preclinical studies.

The monoclonal antibodies were isolated from the blood of a couple from Wuhan, China, who were diagnosed with COVID-19 after traveling to Canada, in late January, and were two of the earliest confirmed cases of COVID-19 in North America. During the past two years, VUMC researchers have developed ultra-fast methods for discovering highly potent antiviral human monoclonal antibodies and validating their ability to protect small animals and non-human primates, all in less than three months. The researchers have used this rapid antibody discovery platform to isolate hundreds of human monoclonal antibodies against the surface spike (S) protein that enables SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to infect lung cells.

The researchers have found that the antibodies, COV2-2196 and COV2-2130, bind to distinct sites on the S protein and either alone or in combination reduce the viral “burden” in infected mice and protect them from weight loss and lung inflammation. They also found that COV2-2196 and another potent antibody, COV2-2381, given alone protected rhesus macaques from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Collectively these results suggest that these monoclonal antibodies, either alone or in combination, “are promising candidates for prevention or treatment of COVID-19,” according to the researchers.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center