Nanobodies and antibodies against 2019-nCoV

Overview: As of Feb 12th, 2020, the death toll of the 2019-nCoV (COVID-19) epidemic has surpassed 1000, rapidly eclipsing the total mortality of SARS. It has a current death rate estimate of around 2 deaths per 100 confirmed infections, is experiencing phenomenal growth in mainland China, and has the potential to spread globally over the coming months. While a vaccine may be useful for future epidemics of a similar virus, it is not clear that such a vaccine can be produced at a speed and scale sufficient to impact the current epidemic. Objective: Antibodies form the basis of a robust adaptive immune response to viral disease. Nearly all licensed vaccines mediate protection through the activity of antibodies and where vaccines are not available, passive infusion of monoclonal antibodies can fill the gap and control the infection. The overarching goal of the CoroNAb consortium is to rapidly identify, validate, and disseminate pre-clinical protein therapeutic candidates with neutralizing activity against 2019-nCoV, and to recommend where their use would be maximally effective. Expected results: Over the course of the project, we expect to design and synthesize recombinant variants of nCoV glycoproteins for immunization in mice, alpacas and macaques in order to generate and characterize multiple nCoV-neutralizing antibodies and nanobodies. We will develop efficient assays for the testing of such antibodies and exploit novel computational workflows to improve neutralizing antibody potency. Finally, we will employ mathematical modeling of the 2019-nCoV epidemic for forecasting intervention effectiveness. Timeline: We expect the project to deliver a number of nCoV neutralizing anti- and nanobodies of increasing potency over a 2 year period from start date.