No more hiding CoV-2: Establishment of SARS-Cov-2 mAbeom

No more hiding CoV-2: Establishment of SARS-Cov-2 mAbeom 

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Project title: No more hiding CoV-2: Establishment of SARS-Cov-2 mAbeom

Grantor: Croatian Science Foundation

Grantor’s website: www.hrzz.hr

Coordinator: Dr. Ilija Brizic

Research team:

Prof. Dr. Tihana Lenac Rovis
Prof. Dr. Alemka Markotic
Dr. Paola Kucan Brlic
Dr. Ivana Strazic Geljic
Dr. Ljerka Karleusa
Carmen Rozmanic, mag. biol. exp.
Fran Krstanovic, mag. biokemije
Andrea Mihalic. mag. biotech. in med.
Suzana Malic, med. lab. ing
Karmela Miklic, med. lab. ing.

Total funding: EUR 197.050,00

 

Brief description:

In late December of 2019, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was identified in Wuhan (China). Since then, SARS-CoV-2 has been declared as public health emergency, quickly spread all over the world and pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 was declared on March 11th 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). Basic and applied research of SARS-CoV-2 biology and pathogenesis is of utmost need. Many academic and industry laboratories worldwide have employed their capacities to deal with SARS-CoV-2, resulting in major gain of knowledge in only a few months. However, further progress and understanding of SARS-CoV-2 will heavily depend on development of research tools. Monoclonal antibodies are an essential tool in most life science studies, widely used in both diagnostics and therapy.

The goal of this project is to develop monoclonal antibodies for all of SARS-CoV-2 proteins. To that aim we will: 1) Express all SARS-CoV-2 proteins (whole proteome, 29 proteins) using eukaryotic and/or prokaryotic expression system; 2) Produce monoclonal antibodies to all SARS-CoV-2 proteins (produce SARS-CoV-2 mAbeom); 3. Validate monoclonal antibodies and implement them into research of SARS-CoV-2. To achieve these goals we are collaborating with several national and international research groups working on complementary research. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this project proposal is to establish a bank of monoclonal antibodies that could meet the current and future needs of scientific community, with the end-result of major impact on SARS-CoV-2 research.