The antibody cocktail is natural and isolated from the blood of corona patients in Israel * The researchers: "Since these antibodies are stable in the blood, any such preventive injection can provide protection against corona for a period of several weeks, maybe even for several months" * The university's commercialization company, Ramot, submitted a patent application
Researchers from Tel Aviv University have succeeded in sequencing thousands of antibodies produced in response to infection in corona patients in Israel. As a result, the researchers were able to isolate and characterize six antibodies taken from the blood of two seriously ill patients, and prove that combinations of three antibodies at a time constitute an effective cocktail against Corona - a cocktail that can provide natural protection against infection for several weeks, perhaps even up to several months. It became clear to the researchers that the source of the neutralizing ability in the blood of the seriously ill patients is several types of antibodies that simultaneously attack different areas on the corona virus - and that the same cocktail is very effective in neutralizing the virus. It should be emphasized that the researchers have proven the effectiveness of the antibody cocktail in cell cultures, and now the research will move to the phase of a trial in humans which is expected to take several months.
The research breakthrough was made in the human antibody research laboratory of Dr. Natalia Freund, together with PhD student Michael Moore, from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. The results of the study are in the process of being published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
The study began with the outbreak of the plague in Israel, in April this year. Dr. Freund and her team recruited 18 participants from among the first corona patients in Israel - 10 of them asymptomatic or with very mild symptoms and 8 of them seriously ill who needed hospitalization and even ventilation at the Ichilov and Kaplan hospitals. All patients in the study recovered from their disease.
"We wanted to understand the antibody response that develops following infection with the virus," explains Dr. Freund. "Among other things, we wanted to see if there was a difference between the mild and severe patients in the development of antibodies that would protect them against a second infection - both in the amount of antibodies and their quality. For this purpose, we sequenced thousands of antibodies from the blood of all the participants, cloned them in the laboratory and tested which antibodies are effective in neutralizing the virus. We found a significant statistical difference in the ability of the antibodies to neutralize the corona virus between the two groups of participants in the study: only a small part of the mild patients developed a neutralizing antibody response against the virus, and in some cases they did not develop antibodies at all. Therefore, it can be assumed that people who were infected with the virus and did not get sick, or had a very mild illness, could possibly be infected again. In contrast, neutralizing antibodies were found in the blood of all the seriously ill patients which would probably protect them from a second infection - even if it is not yet clear how long these antibodies remain in the blood, i.e. whether the protection is long-term".
The lining of the antibodies that do not allow the virus to enter the cell
In the second phase of the study, Dr. Freund and her team took all the antibodies that were sequenced and tried to isolate the specific antibodies that do not allow the virus to bind to the cell and replicate inside it. The team of researchers from Tel Aviv University was able to isolate six different antibodies, taken from two seriously ill patients who participated in the study, and prove that they are effective both in treating the virus and in preventing infection.
"It is about six different antibodies that bind to different target areas on the virus," says Dr. Freund. "There is no single mechanism here. Together, these antibodies identify different weak points in the virus, bind to it and neutralize it. We tested the antibody cocktail in cell cultures on the live virus itself, and saw that the antibodies bind to the virus in a way that does not allow it to enter the cell. This cocktail can in the future be used as a medicine for those who have already been infected and become sick with Corona, similar to the experimental cocktail given to President Trump, and also for the prevention of primary infection intended for at-risk populations and medical teams - until the long-awaited vaccine is developed. It should be understood that we did not develop the cocktail - it is developed naturally by the immune system of patients, so it is safe to use. Since these antibodies are stable in the blood, each such preventive injection can provide protection against corona infection for a period of several weeks, perhaps even several months". As mentioned, the next stage of the research is to test the cocktail in humans.
Ramot, the technology commercialization company of Tel Aviv University, submitted a patent application for all the antibodies found in the study.
The research was done in collaboration with many parties: the recruitment of patients was done in collaboration with Dr. David Hagin from the Immunology Department of the Ichilov Hospital and Dr. Oren Tzemchouni, the director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Kaplan Hospital. The sequencing of the patients' immune cells was conducted in collaboration with the Israeli startup immunai and Dr. Gor Yaari from Bar Ilan University. The characterization of the antibodies was done in collaboration with Professor Johnny Gershoni and Dr. Oren Kobiler from Tel Aviv University, neutralization tests of the dummy virus were conducted in collaboration with Dr. Mittal Gal-Tanami and Dr. Moshe Dessau from the Galilee Faculty of Medicine of Bar Ilan University, and neutralization tests The live virus was compiled in collaboration with Dr. Ben Crocker from the University of California, San Diego.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- Trump received experimental treatment with antibodies against Corona. What are the effective treatments so far?
- Immune memory cells are stable over time after recovery from corona
- Five seriously ill corona patients who received an experimental drug at Hadassah have recovered
- Highly effective coronavirus antibodies identified will form the basis of a passive COVID-19 vaccine
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The method depends on taking blood and antibodies from seriously ill people. This is very problematic in terms of sources of antibodies for many people and the development of a preliminary vaccine or in large quantities.
There are a0 combinations of antibodies that may or may not help against COVID19. In the patent application there is no requirement that it work. Since several hundred research institutes are working on this challenge and everyone fantasizes that theirs will work and is in a hurry to apply for a patent, the chance that the patent will be approved by the USPTO examiner tends to 0. So there will be several scientific articles by the researchers and the test is in the pudding, that is, how many citations will there be for the above study.