Development of an in vitro pseudo-neutralization assay to evaluate the efficacy of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a viral disease that emerged in 2019 and was declared a global pandemic in March 2020. Since then, the virus has killed millions of people and had disastrous socioeconomic impacts around the world. A better understanding of immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19 is essential for the development of vaccines and treatments. Given the recent emergence of this virus, the immune mechanisms specific to it are not yet well understood. However, we do know that infected people develop antibodies that protect them from reinfection. These antibodies are proteins produced by the body that bind to proteins on the virus to prevent it from entering cells. We have previously studied the amount of antibodies in infected people for 24 weeks after being diagnosed with COVID-19. This next project will follow up by studying the effectiveness of these antibodies in neutralizing the virus. We will develop an experiment that can measure it to determine whether it is related to the severity of symptoms in infected people. In addition, these experiments can help us better understand the links between different aspects of immunity, such as the level, type and duration of these antibodies, as well as other clinical parameters.