Development of an NHP model of infection and ADE with COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2)

This COVID-19 Rapid Response award is jointly funded (50:50) between the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research. The figure displayed is the total award amount of the two funders combined, with each partner contributing equally towards the project. PHE Porton's extensive experience in the development of high containment infectious disease models will be applied to set up the UK's first primate model of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This will be achieved by intra-tracheal infection using a virus stock of SARS-CoV-2 acquired through international collaboration. PHE's Victoria stock of virus has been propagated in vitro and has already been used to challenge ferrets at PHE Porton. PHE will also assess the ability of a crude (killed whole virus) vaccine to induce immune mediated disease enhancement. This will be achieved by serially immunising NHPs and then infecting them with live SARS-CoV-2. PHE will assess the clinical signs of infection as well as assessing lung pathology in-life through X-ray and/or CT imaging. In this way, if unusal pathology is observed in the immunised groups, PHE will have set up a "positive control" ADE model to help discriminate vaccines or therapies which assist the host or accidentally enhance the immunopathology of acquired infection.