La Jolla Institute Leading Global Hunt For Antibodies To Coronavirus

April 13, 2020 at 11:15 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:16 Speaker 3: 00:25 Speaker 2: 00:35 Speaker 4: 00:59 Speaker 3: 01:13 Speaker 2: 01:35 Speaker 3: 02:02 Speaker 2: 02:18 Speaker 3: 02:23 Speaker 2: 02:45 Speaker 4: 02:55 Speaker 3: 03:00 Speaker 2: 03:11 Speaker 3: 03:18 Speaker 2: 03:31 Speaker 1: 03:46 Speaker 4: 03:55 Speaker 1: 04:22 Speaker 4: 04:24 Speaker 1: 04:47 Speaker 4: 04:53 Speaker 1: 05:36 Speaker 4: 05:42 Speaker 1: 06:02 Speaker 4: 06:12 Speaker 1: 06:55 Speaker 4: 07:06 Speaker 1: 07:43 There's a new international effort to find a Corona virus treatment and it's headquartered in San Diego. Researchers at LA Jolla Institute for immunology are leading a global hunt for antibodies. KPBS health reporter Taryn mento finds out how it will all work. First things first, what are antibodies? The LA Jolla institutes, Erika Oleman Sapphire explains they're your own personal defense system. I reached her over zoom, so they are what your own immune system makes to attack a foreign invader like a virus and destroy it and to signal the rest of your immune system that there's a threat there to be neutral. She's leading the newly launched Corona virus immunotherapy consortium or Kovac to find the best antibodies to create a treatment. She's done it before in response to the Ebola outbreak. This effort is funded by the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The goal of the collaboration is to sift through antibodies created in labs, but mostly those produced by humans who have survived the virus. How are we actually going to be able to take antibodies from humans who have be in the virus and use that to study how we can manufacture it for widespread distribution. What we're going to do is receive those samples and do what's called blinding meeting. Everything gets given a code name to make it very fair instead of the antibodies real name, but they're all going to be called Kobek one two three 548 then we're going to send identical box sets of the world's array of antibodies out to different participating analysis labs. Each of them are using a different kind of technique. Some may examine how antibodies attached to the virus while others look at how they deactivate it. Sapphire says the Institute will assess results from dozens of partners, but so far they've only publicly announced Duke university and companies in the Bay area and Canada. The Institute will then pick the best antibody therapy and recommend it to funders like the world health organization or the Gates foundation. It sounds simple, but the LA Jolla institutes, Shane Crotty says it is an easy word. How do you figure out the best antibody which, which ones are, uh, are the best and a really good antibody is a thousand times better than an okay antibody. Okay. There there's, there's enormous range of functionalities. Even when they do find the right antibodies and create a therapy that treatment doesn't last forever. The antibodies only last a while after the injection. Just like any drug essentially, right? There's a, there's a time window where it, where it acts and antibodies are, are great, uh, great drugs cause they'll, they'll last for three weeks or more. Um, so they can really, it's not like taking a Tylenol that you know, works for like four hours, but it's still a short term solution. So while Sapphire is working on injecting antibodies as a treatment, karate is tapping into that research to develop a vaccine. That's what teaches ourselves how to make our own antibodies. It sounds like Erica is working on the short term way to address Corona virus and you will be participating in the consortium by looking at the longterm way to address coronavirus. Yeah, that's right. Generally speaking. Um, the flip side, Sapphire says, vaccines take much longer than antibody therapy to provide protection against the virus. You get your immunity four to eight weeks after receiving the vaccine. Well, that's great for a virus that you expect to encounter four to eight weeks from now. But if you need immunity now, delivering it in this way can do that for you today still that today is months away at least she says the earliest a partner will begin testing antibody therapies on humans is June and the Institute plans to review results from all of the labs to find the very best treatment. I'm joined now by KPBS health reporter Taren mento. Hi Taryn. Hi Highmark. So first off, how common is antibody therapy? Right. So I asked Shane karate about this. He's a virologist and immunologist at the LA Jolla Institute. And for treatment, injecting antibodies, he says that we've been doing this for more than a hundred years, about 120 years. And he says the first Nobel prize was actually for injectable antibodies. And then for vaccines it's also really common. He said there's about 28 licensed vaccines. Um, and about 20 of them are based on antibodies and who could be treated with antibody therapy. So Erica Allman Sapphire at the LA Jolla Institute, she's leading the consortium. She said it could be used to protect healthcare providers, people really on the front lines to, to prevent them from actually contracting it, give them a immune immunity immediately or a close contact of someone who has Corona virus or is suspected of having Corona virus or maybe even someone that's already sick with it. And what success have we had with antibody therapy treating Corona by risk patients. So in the U S there's a lot of institutions that are really just starting out using this and the Mayo clinic. And then here locally the blood bank is collecting plasma from survivors and as possibly working with some local hospitals. But there was a report, uh, coming out of China. Um, they used, uh, this, this, uh, plasma or antibodies from survivors on five critically ill patients and they noticed them. And these were people who were really, really, um, just very critically ill and they, they did notice that like body temperature started to regulate after like about three or four days. So they did see success there. But again, it's only five people. Um, so there's a lot more of findings to come out of these studies that are happening. And you mentioned the San Diego blood bank collecting plasma from survivors. Uh, are they a part of this effort? They are not formally a part of the effort. No. Um, but Erica Allman Sapphire, she says that, you know, any results coming out of these efforts will help, you know, inform their work as well. So that'll be some additional data that they could incorporate as they're looking at from people who are a part of the consortium and doing these experiments. And these studies, you mentioned the LA Jolla Institute, we'll be working on a vaccine too, but they're not the only company, not even the only local company. What progress have we made at all on a vaccine? So globally, there's more than a hundred institutions working on a vaccine. But, uh, there's only about five that have actually progressed to testing in humans. And one of those is, uh, Novio pharmaceuticals. They just announced that they injected, um, their first human volunteer this week. Uh, there was another company that was just ahead of them last month, but that other company actually didn't even do, um, animal testing before human testing. They're kind of doing it at the same time. And Novio did do some animal testing ahead of time and saw some positive results. So we're still waiting to see progress on those five, including the one with the Novio. Um, but there's, there's, there's more than a hundred and in progress. And you said in your story, the earliest the LA Jolla Institute will begin testing the antibodies in humans is a, this June. And the big question, of course, any idea how soon we'll know if their efforts are successful. That is the main question obviously that everyone wants answered. The Mo, the positive note is that a lot of the scientists that I've talked to about this have said that they are, they are confident that we will get a treatment. Um, and not even just a treatment, but also a vaccine. Uh, you know, when everyone kind of says it's not clear who's it'll be, but everyone's making progress on and, and working really well, and they w they know they will achieve it. But yeah, the question is, is when, and that's something we'll have to be looking for and progress will be made when they start testing in June, and hopefully LA Jolla Institute will report out some results not too long after I've been speaking with KPBS health reporter Taryn mento. Thanks, Taryn. Thanks, Mark.

By KPBS Public Media

There’s a new international effort to find a coronavirus treatment and it’s headquartered in San Diego. Researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology are leading a global hunt for antibodies.