Fighting COVID-19: a story of flexibility and collaboration
Fighting COVID-19: a story of extreme flexibility and intense collaboration
The outbreak of a new coronavirus in 2020 posed one of VIB’s greatest challenges ever. Many researchers dropped whatever they were doing to partner up and fight COVID-19, showing great flexibility. Luckily, they didn't have to start from scratch. Decades of research paved the way for lightning-fast investigation into possible medicines and the development of testing capacity.
The innovators
Antibodies to the rescue
The VIB lab of prof. Xavier Saelens focuses on the prevention and treatment of respiratory diseases, including influenza and beta-coronaviruses. When the new coronavirus entered the scene, everybody immediately mobilized to try to find a potential treatment. Xavier Saelens: "We formed the 'COVID-19 Response Team' with the lab of Nico Callewaert – consisting of ten, later twenty people – and started international collaborations with the American institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the University of Texas and the German Primate Center. Working almost 24/7, we quite quickly discovered that an existing antibody derived from llamas (read the origin story), which binds to the SARS-CoV-1 virus that caused the SARS epidemic in 2003, also binds to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
"Antibodies can offer immediate protection without the need of an active immune response. This is of particular use for vulnerable people, such as the elderly, whose immune systems tend to respond poorly to vaccines. In addition, antibody-based drugs have a well-known path of development from the lab to the clinic." To test the safety and effectiveness of the llama antibody-derived drug on patients, VIB spin-off ExeVir Bio was founded in 2020.
From bench to bedside
Another example of incredible collaboration and flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic can be found within VIB's Grand Challenges Program (GCP). This program aims to increase the societal impact of research, adopting a reverse translation approach by referring back needs and questions from daily practice to the lab. In 2020, the program received additional funding from the Flemish government to link clinical observations at partner hospitals with research into the underlying molecular mechanisms of COVID-19. Bart Lambrecht, VIB professor and pneumologist at Ghent University Hospital, was the driving force behind these new GCP tracks.
The Contagious clinical trial was set up to characterize patients hospitalized at the Leuven University Hospital due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Samples from patients in three disease stages (early, moderate and late) were collected to identify factors that mediate (hyper)susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. Lung fluid samples revealed that monocytes – white blood cells produced by bone marrow – are the cause of intense inflammatory reactions.
Lambrecht: "We discovered that more inflammatory molecules, called 'cytokines', are present in the lungs of ventilated intensive care patients, which enhances the risks of severe damage. Sometimes these cytokines are present in such great numbers that it causes what we call a ‘cytokine storm’. We hoped to prevent or mitigate these cytokine storms through the administration of arthritis medication in the COVAID clinical trial, funded by the Belgian Health Care Knowledge Center, but the treatments didn't result in faster healing or a greater chance of survival for participating patients. On the other hand, we gained unique insights in the true mechanisms behind SARS-CoV-2 infection and the disease it causes.
Prof. Eva Van Braeckel, pneumologist and medical COVID-19 coordinator at Ghent University Hospital, was not only involved in the COVAID project, but also very closely in SARPAC, another project within the VIB Grand Challenges Program. "Since every day counts during a pandemic, we investigated the effectiveness of existing medicines in treating COVID-19," Van Braeckel explains. "Data suggested that patients with high oxygen needs – risking further deterioration and the need for mechanical ventilation – could benefit from treatment with an immunostimulator called Leukine®, which we administered through inhalation directly into the airways. The participating patients tolerated the treatment well and showed stable or declining levels of key inflammatory markers.
"The remarkable collaboration between the government and numerous people and organizations – hospitals, study centers, and different partners in the tech ecosystem – impressed me throughout the entire crisis. I used to see Bart Lambrecht and his team only once in a while, but since the beginning of the pandemic, they have been camping out at the hospital. We held daily check-in staff meetings with medical doctors and researchers to discuss all our COVID patients and see whether they were eligible for one of our studies. 'From bench to bedside' – a term used to describe translational research – has been given a whole new dimension."
Testing capacity and clear information
Medicine testing and development wasn't the only contribution made by VIB. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, an internal taskforce mapped and set up the infrastructure needed for additional testing in less than three weeks. Eight Ghent-based VIB teams of volunteers tested samples to determine whether patients were infected with the virus. A few months later, British biotech company Oxford Nanopore launched its new tests based on VIB's rapid DNA sequencing technology (read the origin story).
Another task not to be underestimated was providing people with the right information about the virus, the disease it causes and the way vaccines work. With the 'Vaccins verklaard' campaign (Dutch for 'Vaccines explained'), people who were uncertain about vaccination received useful information about the history of vaccine research – the first vaccine dates from 1796! – and the story behind the unusually fast development of COVID-19 vaccines. And together with VRT NWS, imec, the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Health House and Brightlab, VIB developed the EDUbox Pandemics: a ready-made teaching package to inform young people in an attractive, interactive way.
Additionally, to help the scientific community bundle their expertise and knowledge, VIB supported the Interdisciplinary Symposium on COVID-19 on June 24th, 2021. The swift action of the global scientific community resulted in a historically rapid vaccine development and growing understanding of the virus's biology. The conference had the explicit aim of helping medical and academic researchers stay up to date on the latest developments.
Almost two years after the outbreak, the pandemic is far from over. "Through intense collaborations between people with different background, we've already moved mountains in this enormous battle," Bart Lambrecht asserts. "We knew little about the infection and how the disease would evolve, but everybody was ready to find solutions. But a few mighty challenges remain. We still don't know how to obtain sterilizing immunity, which is needed to develop a vaccine that prevents infection instead of disease. And what is behind the very different individual reactions to the virus? These are important questions for basic scientists to answer in the years to come."
Faces of VIB's COVID-19 research
Since COVID-19 put our lives upside down, many VIB researchers turned their knowledge and expertise towards this global health challenge.
