The COVID pandemic, which is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has stimulated rapid developments in vaccines, anti-viral therapeutics and other treatments. Because people infected with SARS-CoV-2 respond differently, ranging from mild symptoms to life-threatening disease, there is a need for prophylactic treatments. One example of prophylactic anti-viral therapeutics under development is synthetic nanobodies, known as a sybodies. Sybodies are single domain antibodies that are small, stable and inexpensive to produce using microbial fermentation (bacteria or yeast).

Justin D. Walter, Markus A. Seeger and their colleagues recently reported on their generation of sybodies against the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein. Their preliminary report highlights their discovery of 63 unique anti-RBD sybodies that interact with the full-length spike glycoprotein, which is important for host-recognition and the initial infection event. In the report published in bioRxiv, “Synthetic nanobodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain,” the authors also present sequence information and detailed protocols for the sybodies. Their report will be continually updated with characterization of the sybodies, production yields and their capability to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Please find the paper, “Synthetic nanobodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain” by Justin D. Walter, Cedric A.J. Hutter, Iwan Zimmermann, Marianne Wyss, Pascal Egloff, Michèle Sorgenfrei, Lea M. Hürlimann, Imre Gonda, Gianmarco Meier, Sille Remm, Sujani Tavarasah, Philippe Plattet and Markus A. Seeger at bioRxiv; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.16.045419.

Chamow & Associates assists companies to develop biologics for clinical testing, including those against SARS-CoV-2, and welcomes your inquiry.