Shifting focus in Biomedical Science: Understanding the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on COVID-19 tests and vaccines

Philadelphia / Aachen – Emerging global strategies to fight the pandemic focus on two biomedical pillars: vaccines and so-called rapid or self-tests. Both rely on the right antibodies coming into play and are expected to be widely available in the near future. However, with the SARS-CoV-2 virus evolving and giving rise to mutations that lead to permanent changes in its key characteristics, the effectiveness of these vaccines and tests is questioned.

While the public is mostly interested in the changes of infection rates or disease progression, biomedical scientists are focused on the details such as the mutations relevant for antigen tests and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. These variations are mainly these in the so-called Spike or S-Protein and the Nucleocapsid or N-Protein. Antibody binding to these proteins of interest (i.e., scientifically speaking the "antigen") by nature, however, is very specific and as such sensitive to mutations in the target protein. A seemingly subtle change within the S- or N-Protein may render antibodies triggered by today’s vaccines or used for production in today’s antigen tests ineffective.   

Additional funding for mutation research

Therefore, the EU publicly announced the release of an additional 150 million EUR in funding for biomedical research specifically targeted at SARS-CoV-2 variants last week. At the same time, US authorities are shifting their focus to locally emerging mutation populations that have appeared on their radar. Scientists around the world are called to arms to equip for the battle against a continuously evolving SARS-CoV-2 virus population.

“As of now, biomedical labs are focusing on mutations occurring in the S-Protein, but we are seeing increasing interest in the N-Protein mutations as well and expect to see more of that,” Dr. Tim Hiddemann, Co-Founder and Managing Director of global research reagent vendor antibodies-online.com explains. “To be able to track effectiveness of vaccines and tests already used in the field or about to be released from the labs especially in the context of new mutations, the existence of a sufficiently powerful arsenal of research tools is essential.”

If science is pushed to trade speed for quality control on relevant SARS-CoV-2 strains, a wide rollout of any vaccine or test may produce the opposite effect. This may lead to a selective pressure for viral evolution favoring so-called escape mutants of the Coronavirus capable of evading our tools to fight the pandemic. Much of this is known from the impact of antibiotics on the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria strains. Therefore, a demand will rise for recombinant SARS-CoV-2 mutant specific proteins mimicking native folding and for antibodies reliably detecting S- and N-Proteins in relevant virus lineages. These are crucial components for ELISA Kits to quickly generate quantitative results for drug discovery and vaccine development projects.

Rapidly growing resource for Coronavirus research

Future mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins remain hard to predict but given the mutation frequency of its genome the number of new variants will continue to emerge. "As the Coronavirus will continue to evolve, antibodies-online.com is building a rapidly growing resource of mutation-specific proteins and antibodies for science to be able to respond quickly and efficiently," says Dr. Andreas Kessell, second Co-Founder and Managing Director of the US and Europe based reagent vendor. 

From the first onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and early research in 2020 up to today, antibodies-online.com has been a trusted source for more than 400 research labs worldwide, working on the first set of diagnostic tools and vaccines against the canonical SARS-CoV-2. Along this line of working at the forefront of COVID-19 research, and as there is a shifting focus today, antibodies-online.com focuses on its rapidly growing list of newly available COVID-19 mutation products ready to be shipped to more than 65 countries in the world.