SBIR Phase I: Immunity Transfer by Magnetic Separation (COVID-19)

这个小企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力针对的是新冠肺炎这一全球流行病。最近，从康复的新冠肺炎患者中输注血浆在治疗中显示出一些效果。这是由于捐赠者血浆中识别SARS-CoV-2病毒的抗体，增强了接受者的免疫系统，使其能够更好地对抗新冠肺炎。通过将供体血浆与包裹有能够捕获这些治疗性抗体的分子的磁性颗粒混合，我们将以磁性方式提取、纯化和浓缩这些抗体，用于新冠肺炎治疗。这项技术也有可能推广到其他疾病。这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目建议开发化学结合策略和能够从每单位血浆中分离大量治疗性抗体的新型磁体阵列。这一战略带来了从单个康复的新冠肺炎患者身上采集大量治疗性SARS-CoV-2抗体的可能性，使多个患者能够从一个康复患者的血浆中进行治疗。抗体耗尽的血浆可以返回给捐赠者，从而实现多次捐献血浆，而不需要从捐赠者身上永久移除血浆。此外，获得纯化抗体应该能够扩大治疗剂量，潜在地赋予患者更长的免疫力或诱导更强大的免疫反应。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project addresses the COVID-19 global pandemic. Recently, transfusions of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients has shown some efficacy in treatment. This is due to antibodies in the donor plasma that recognize the SARS-CoV-2 virus, boosting the recipient’s immune system to better fight COVID-19. By mixing donor plasma with magnetic particles coated with molecules that can capture these therapeutic antibodies, we will magnetically extract, purify and concentrate these antibodies for use in COVID-19 treatment. This technology can potentially be extended to other diseases as well. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to develop chemical conjugation strategies and novel magnet arrays capable of isolating large amounts of therapeutic antibody from each unit of plasma. This strategy introduces the potential to harvest large amounts of therapeutic SARS-CoV-2 antibodies from a single recovered COVID-19 patient, enabling treatment of multiple patients from the plasma of one convalescent patient. The antibody-depleted plasma can be returned to the donor, enabling multiple plasma donations without the requirement of permanently removing plasma from the donor. In addition, access to purified antibodies should enable scaling of the therapeutic dose, potentially conferring longer immunity or inducing a more robust immune response in the patient.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.