..

Sunney Xie, director of the university’s Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage. (https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-scientists-china-drug-pandemic-vaccine.html)

Peking University, July 2, 2018: On July 1, 2018, Professor Xiaoliang Sunney Xie, the first tenured professor at Harvard University from mainland China, member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, and winner of the 2015 Albany Medical Center Prize, officially returned to Peking University, his alma mater, as a full-time faculty.

In the future, Professor Xie will continue his career in science as Lee Shau-kee Chair Professor at Peking University, director of PKU’s Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center, and director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics.

http://newsen.pku.edu.cn/news_events/news/focus/7401.htm

..

May 19, 2020

Scientists in China believe new drug can stop pandemic ‘without vaccine’

by Qian Ye and Matthew Knight

A Chinese laboratory has been developing a drug it believes has the power to bring the coronavirus pandemic to a halt.

The outbreak first emerged in China late last year before spreading across the world, prompting an international race to find treatments and vaccines.

A drug being tested by scientists at China’s prestigious Peking University could not only shorten the recovery time for those infected, but even offer short-term immunity from the virus, researchers say.

Sunney Xie, director of the university’s Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics, told AFP that the drug has been successful at the animal testing stage.

“When we injected neutralising antibodies into infected mice, after five days the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500,” said Xie.

“That means this potential drug has (a) therapeutic effect.”

The drug uses neutralising antibodies—produced by the human immune system to prevent the virus infecting cells—which Xie’s team isolated from the blood of 60 recovered patients.

A study on the team’s research, published Sunday in the scientific journal Cell, suggests that using the antibodies provides a potential “cure” for the disease and shortens recovery time.

Xie said his team had been working “day and night” searching for the antibody.

“Our expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology. When we realised that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively find the neutralising antibody we were thrilled.”

He said he hopes that the drug will be ready for use later this year and in time for any potential winter outbreak of the virus, which has infected 4.8 million people around the world and killed more than 315,000.

“Planning for the clinical trial is underway,” said Xie, adding it will be carried out in Australia and other countries since cases have dwindled in China, offering fewer human guinea pigs for testing.

“The hope is these neutralising antibodies can become a specialised drug that would stop the pandemic,” he said.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-scientists-china-drug-pandemic-vaccine.html

..

Global Times

PKU-led Team Found Effective SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies

Source: Peking University Published: 2020/5/18 19:34:332

A joint research team led by Sunney Xie, Director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics (ICG) at Peking University (PKU) has successfully identified multiple highly potent neutralizing antibodies against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus of the respiratory disease COVID-19, from convalescent plasma by high-throughput single-cell sequencing.

Generated by human immune system, neutralizing antibodies can effectively prevent viruses from infecting cells. New results from animal studies showed that their neutralizing antibody provides a potential cure for COVID-19 as well as means for short-term prevention. This marks a major milestone in the fight against the pandemic.
–

This study has been published online in Cell, titled “Potent neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 identified by high-throughput single-cell sequencing of convalescent patients’ B cells”. This work was jointly conducted by Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics and Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center of Peking University, Beijing YouAn Hospital of Capital Medical University, Institute of Laboratory Animal Science(ILAS) of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Comparative Medicine Center, Peking Union Medical College, Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology of Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Sino Biological, Inc., WuXi Biologics and Singlomics.

The co-authors of this article are Yunlong Cao, Bin Su, Xianghua Guo, Wenjie Sun, Yongqiang Deng, Linlin Bao, Qinyu Zhu. The corresponding authors are Chuan Qin, Chengfeng Qin, Ronghua Jin, and Sunney Xie. The work which began on Jan. 27, 2020 was supported by The People’s Government of Beijing Municipality, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1188719.shtml

..