Monthly Archives: April 2020

The ultimate goal of the new and emerging SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests is to determine when and how we can safely get back to work and restart our stalled economies. While knowing how many people are sick is valuable in tracking the rate of disease spread and identifying people who need to isolate or seek treatment, it misses out on telling us who has had the virus and has recovered (or may have not been symptomatic at all). The idea is that people with antibodies may be protected from (re-)infection and are therefore safe to return to “normal” life. (caveats are that these antibodies are actually protective and will last, conferring immunity).

A good article discussing what antibodies are and how these tests operate was recently published in USA Today. The form of many of these tests is very similar to home pregnancy tests (lateral flow ELISAs), enabling quick, rapid results with no special training to perform.

Eventually, once enough people have been exposed to the virus and recovered or been vaccinated against the virus (probably early next year), then we will have herd immunity sufficient to protect the vulnerable people around us from being exposed to a life-threatening illness.

In the meantime, we’ll probably have to be content with a ‘new normal’ of living in a way that doesn’t prevent the spread of infection but limits it to a level that our hospitals can bear.

This is an excellent graphic from the laboratory of Carl June, who is a pioneer in CAR T Cell therapy at UPenn (Moore and June. Science  17 Apr 2020). One of the problems associated with CAR T Cell therapy is the resulting cytokine story often accompanying such a large infusion of immune cells. A similar problem is seen in COVID-19 patients (as well as in those infected with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV), where it is thought to be the actual cause of death in infected patients.

Preliminary trials using drugs interfering with IL-6 signaling are showing signs of hope for severely sick COVID-19 patients.

Thank you to Michael McHeyzer-Williams (@mmw_lmw) of the Scripps Institute for his tweet pointing me toward this paper.

I have to admit, I’m getting a little bit tired of COVID-19. Or more specifically, I am getting tired of all the social distancing and not being able to work from my campus office. More than anything, this comes out in my frustration at having to use online meetings to conduct classes and student one-on-ones. Perhaps I’m not as effective a communicator as I would like to be, but I miss being able to sketch out ideas on paper to show students how systems work or using a whiteboard to supplement PowerPoint slides.

I am very much looking forward to exposure testing (an antibody test – most likely laminar flow, e.g. pregnancy tests) for SARS-cov-2 to demonstrate that we’ve either had the virus or are otherwise immune to it so we can get back to work!

I suggest that the Whitehouse coronavirus taskforce spend some time watching ‘Contagion’ for a roadmap of how we can return to a normally functioning society after an outbreak.

Another front in the fight against this virus that I am eagerly awaiting is a vaccine such as that made by the company Moderna, which uses RNA-like molecules to deliver protein-encoded messages to our cells. I’m eager to see the results of this vaccine’s trials (now at Emory University) both for the immediate effect in preventing COVID-19 as well as to see how this new vaccine platform performs.

I have my fingers crossed that I can get back to work as usual and, equally important, get back to my climbing gym, RoKC.