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

随着当前COVID-19大流行的展开，我们迫切需要筛查工具，以确定谁能够充分免受导致该疾病的SARS-CoV-2病毒的影响。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。这包括那些已经被感染的人，在许多情况下没有意识到这一点。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性结合的抗体来测量。然而，随着时间的推移，抗体反应自然会减弱，越来越多的COVID-19阳性个体不再具有可检测到的抗体。长期对抗病毒的保护不仅来自抗体，还来自免疫系统中称为“T细胞”的细胞，它们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细胞应答持续时间更长，并且必须存在才能构成有效的保护性免疫。T细胞反应的强度和持久性，以防止再感染仍然是未知的，但这是一个领域的热切国际兴趣。通常，测量T细胞反应的技术是费力的，难以实现，昂贵和劳动密集型。该项目将建立一种家庭手指点刺COVID-19免疫检测方法，从单个毛细血管血液样本中识别SARS-CoV-2反应性T细胞和抗体的存在。一个简单有效的测量个体的T细胞和抗体对SARS-CoV-2的反应将彻底改变我们对COVID-19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，即是否有足够的免疫反应保护个体免受SARS-CoV-2感染，包括突变变体，已经生成。该产品将能够进行大规模的免疫测试，这对于评估人群免疫力，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.