Prof.  Rui  Gong
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,  China

Title: Development of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against viral infection

Abstract:

Antibodies are the most effective tools for prevention and treatment of pathogen infections. For example, neutralizing monoclonal antibodies “ZMapp” were successfully used for therapy in infected patients during the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Currently, several neutralizing antibodies have been approved for clinical use including: palivizumab (Synagis®) and nirsevimab (Beyfortus®) against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, ibalizumab-uiyk (Trogarzo®) agaisnt human immunodeficiency virus type 1 ( HIV-1) infection, Inmazeb (antibody cocktail: atoltivimab, maftivimab and odesivimab-ebgn) and Ebanga (ansuvimab-zykl) against Ebola virus (EBOV) infection. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, a panel of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Now selection of therapeutic antibodies against viral infection is a very attractive direction in development of new antiviral drugs.

Biography:

Rui Gong, Ph.D., Head of Antibody Engineering Group, Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor. Dr. Gong graduated from Wuhan University in 2002 and received his Ph.D. also in Wuhan University in 2007. He went to National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, USA in 2007 for his training as a postdoctoral fellow, and joined Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and established Antibody Engineering Group for antibody engineering-related research in 2012. Dr. Gong won Federal Technology Transfer Award (NIH, USA) in 2011 and 2012. He has about thirty publications and one international patent in application. He is hosting or hosted the grants of the Strategic Priority, Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Young Scientist Subject of the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Project), and National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.

Research Interests: The major goals are to select full-length antibodies and antibody fragments against important and emerging viruses by phage display, yeast display, and other high throughput screening technologies; develop novel C-based single domain antibodies (nanoantibodies) based on scaffolds derived from antibody constant CH2 domains in antibody Fc fragments; and improve biological activities of Fc fragments. We try to elucidate the basic questions (e.g., understand the mechanism of virus-host interactions) in virology, and solve several difficulties for improvement of yield of protein-related drugs during the research and development of therapeutic antibodies (e.g., improve the efficiency of correct folding in proteins).