Combined SARS-CoV-2 T cell & antibody capillary blood test for high-throughput population immunity screening

随着当前新冠肺炎大流行的蔓延，我们迫切需要筛查工具，以确定谁对导致这种疾病的SARS-CoV-2病毒有足够的保护。为了使人口和经济恢复正常，重要的是要知道谁通过感染或接种疫苗对病毒产生了免疫力。这包括已经感染SARS-CoV-2的人，在许多情况下，他们并没有意识到这一点。为了获得对SARS-CoV-2的免疫力，一个人必须产生足够的免疫反应，以防止未来的感染。这可以通过寻找血液样本中发现的与病毒特异结合的抗体来衡量。然而，抗体反应会随着时间的推移而自然减弱，越来越多的新冠肺炎阳性个体不再有可检测到的抗体。对病毒的长期保护不仅来自抗体，还来自免疫系统中的细胞--T细胞，它在控制和根除病毒感染方面发挥着关键作用。免疫学家越来越多地接受T细胞反应更持久，也必须存在才能构成有效的保护性免疫。预防再次感染的T细胞反应的规模和持久性尚不清楚，但这是一个引起国际热切关注的领域。通常情况下，测量T细胞反应的技术费力、难以标准化、昂贵且劳动密集型。该项目将建立一种在家指点新冠肺炎免疫测试，从单个毛细血管血样中识别SARS-CoV-2反应性T细胞和抗体的存在。对一个人的T细胞和对SARS-CoV-2的抗体反应进行简单有效的测量将彻底改变我们对什么构成对新冠肺炎的保护性免疫的理解。此外，随着疫苗的推出，这里开发的测试结果将产生关键的额外信息，即是否已经产生了足以保护个人免受SARS-CoV-2感染的免疫反应，包括变异的变种。该产品将使大规模免疫测试得以进行，这对评估人群免疫力、监测疫苗效力以及更广泛地恢复正常生活方式至关重要。

As the current COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, we urgently require screening tools that determine who is sufficiently protected from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the disease. To enable the population and the economy to return to normal, it is important to know who has become immune to the virus through infection or vaccination. This includes individuals who have already been infected, in many cases without realising it.In order to gain immunity to SARS-CoV-2, an individual must generate an adequate immune response that protects from future infection. This can be measured by looking for antibodies found in blood samples that bind specifically to the virus. However, antibody responses naturally wane over time, and there are increasing instances of COVID-19-positive individuals no longer having detectable antibodies.Long-term protection against viruses not only comes from antibodies, but from cells of the immune system called 'T cells', which play a critical role in controlling and eradicating viral infections. There is an increasing acceptance amongst immunologists that a T cell response is longer lasting and must also be present to constitute effective, protective immunity. The magnitude and durability of a T cell response that protects against reinfection remains unknown, but is an area of fervent international interest.Ordinarily, techniques that measure T cell responses are laborious, hard to standardise, expensive and labour-intensive. This project will establish an at-home, finger-prick COVID-19 immunity assay that identifies the presence of both SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells and antibodies from a single capillary blood sample. A simple, effective measurement of an individual's T cell and antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 would revolutionise our understanding of what constitutes protective immunity to COVID-19\.In addition, as vaccines are rolled out, results from the test developed here will yield critical additional information as to whether an adequate immune response that protects individuals from SARS-CoV-2 infection, including mutated variants, has been generated. This product would enable large scale immunity testing to be performed, crucial for assessing population immunity, monitoring vaccine efficacy, and more broadly resuming a normal lifestyle.