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Jill Horowitz stood outside the Quaker Ridge Shopping Center in New Rochelle, N.Y.—an early COVID-19 hotspot—in March, stopping shoppers as they walked into the grocery store. She handed them blue pamphlets soliciting volunteers for a Rockefeller University antibody research study. “I would say, ‘Would you like to help us find a cure?’” says Horowitz, executive director of strategic operations at Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Molecular Immunology. “I didn’t even have to mention coronavirus. This neighborhood was completely subsumed.”
Within weeks—and after receiving more than 2,000 phone calls from volunteers—the university had selected more than 100 participants who had recovered from COVID-19 or had come into contact with someone who had the disease, says Michel Nussenzweig, head of the laboratory. From participants’ blood samples, he and his team isolated more than a dozen potent antibodies that “neutralized,” or deactivated, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in a lab dish. The study is one of a growing number showing the body produces antibodies against this deadly disease. The findings suggest that therapies based on these proteins could be a promising approach. But experts caution that such therapies must clear several hurdles before they can be deployed against COVID-19.
Our body naturally produces antibodies to help us fight infections. Many researchers believe that by isolating antibodies from people who have recovered from COVID-19 and then artificially reproducing them, we can develop therapies that could minimize symptoms and speed recovery from the disease. Some of the same scientists are also eyeing the prophylactic use of copied antibodies to stave off an infection in those who have not contracted the new coronavirus. (Therapies based on these so-called monoclonal antibodies are different from convalescent plasma treatments, which have also made headlines recently. In the latter, plasma is taken from people who have recovered from COVID-19 and transfused directly into those who are infected. The jury is still out on whether convalescent plasma is truly effective against the disease.)...
