UTMB coronavirus clone could speed development of vaccines, antiviral drugs

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Houston Chronicle by  Nick Powell April 25, 2020

UTMB coronavirus clone could speed development of vaccines, antiviral drugs

A team of researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston has developed a system that will allow scientists to expedite the process of developing and evaluating novel coronavirus vaccines, diagnose infected patients and screen potential antiviral drugs.

Led by Pei-Yong Shi, a professor of human genetics at the medical branch, the team built on a reverse genetic system that he created to manipulate the virus genome. Team members then used that system to create a clone of the coronavirus injected with a neon green fluorescent protein.

While adding color to a cloned virus may not sound like a groundbreaking development, scientists can use the green coronavirus clone to test the efficacy of a developing vaccine by placing the neon virus in a blood sample of a vaccinated individual. If the vaccine is ineffective, the infected cells will take on a greenish hue; if it is successful, the green virus will be diluted.

The development of the cloned green coronavirus could be crucial to determining whether a person already infected by the virus has antibodies that block the virus and prevent them from being reinfected. Testing for antibodies will help scientists determine what proportion of infected people were asymptomatic and also help pin down a more accurate number of infections. It is widely assumed the number of people infected by the coronavirus is greater than what has been officially reported, particularly in the United States, which has tested less than 2 percent of its population.

Faster test results

Shi said tests involving the green cloned coronavirus can be turned around much faster simply by virtue of it being tagged with a color. If a person’s blood doesn’t have antibodies, the cloned virus will infect the cell and turn it green. If an infected person’s blood has antibodies, those antibodies will bind to the cloned virus and the cell won’t turn green.

“You don’t have any capacity limitations,” Shi said. “It could be as short as three or four hours you get a result rather than a week.”

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