Humans are susceptible to many life-threatening viruses such as HIV, influenza and Ebola. The current coronavirus pandemic is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020.  Rapid discovery and development of new therapeutics is therefore an absolute necessity to combat these viruses.

B cells from exposed patients are a potential source of viral neutralizing antibodies. We will demonstrate how B Cell Antibody Discovery on the Beacon® system can be used to rapidly screen human B cells to identify anti-viral antigen-specific antibodies in under a week.  B cells can be screened from both acute and convalescent patients. Our collaborators have already leveraged the speed of our platform to discover >500 antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a single day.

This workflow has the potential to enable rapid discovery of antibodies against difficult therapeutic targets such as SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses.

Learning Objectives:

1. Rapid discovery of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and other pandemic viruses
2. Screening of B cells to identify novel therapeutic antibodies
3. Rapid down-selection of lead candidates