Discussions

The ability of vaccines or drugs to neutralize viruses is an important sign of their efficacy in preventing or treating viral diseases. Under normal circumstances, the vaccine or drug can be directly incubated with live virus in vitro, and then the virus' ability to infect cells can be observed to evaluate its virus neutralizing ability. However, for the highly infectious SARS-CoV-2, operations related to live viruses must be performed under BSL-3 conditions, which greatly limits the development process of COVID-19 vaccines and drugs.

Efficacy and safety characteristics must also be evaluated before advancing a candidate to the next level, maybe clinical trials. “We’ve also established proprietary platforms for SARS-CoV-2 drug validation,” the specialist noted, “with the goal of providing the most thorough and extensive analytical analysis.” The system includes:

reverse genetics systems

cell lines: ACE2-overexpressing stable cell lines & spike-expressing stable cell lines

neutralization assay SARS-CoV-2 spike-pseudovirus

protease inhibitor assay