Rapid isolation of potent SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies and protection in a small animal model

Rogers, Thomas F.; Zhao, Fangzhu; Huang, Deli; Beutler, Nathan; Burns, Alison; He, Wan-ting; Limbo, Oliver; Smith, Chloe; Song, Ge; Woehl, Jordan; Yang, Linlin; Abbott, Robert K.; Callaghan, Sean; Garcia, Elijah; Hurtado, Jonathan; Parren, Mara; Peng, Linghang; Ricketts, James; Ricciardi, Michael J.; Rawlings, Stephen A.; Smith, Davey M.; Nemazee, David; Teijaro, John R.; Voss, James E.; Andrabi, Raiees; Briney, Bryan; Landais, Elise; Sok, Devin; Jardine, Joseph G.; Burton, Dennis R.

The development of countermeasures to prevent and treat COVID-19 is a global health priority. In under 7 weeks, we enrolled a cohort of SARS-CoV-2-recovered participants, developed neutralization assays to interrogate serum and monoclonal antibody responses, adapted our high throughput antibody isolation, production and characterization pipeline to rapidly screen over 1000 antigen-specific antibodies, and established an animal model to test protection. We report multiple highly potent neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) and show that passive transfer of a nAb provides protection against high-dose SARS-CoV-2 challenge in Syrian hamsters. The study suggests a role for nAbs in prophylaxis, and potentially therapy, of COVID-19. The nAbs define protective epitopes to guide vaccine design.