Dr. Cliona Ni Cheallaigh

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A key issue during the ongoing SARS-CoV2 pandemic is to determine the proportion of the population possessing effective antibodies for virus clearance and long-term immunity. Screening post-infection immunity will identify key/frontline healthcare workers that can work without risk of re-infection. This assay will also be crucial to monitor the true scale of the pandemic as many infections will be mild/ asymptomatic without testing. Furthermore, with ongoing plasmapheresis trials using anti-SARS-CoV2 antibody-containing sera for critical COVID-19 patients, identifying donors with high levels of anti-viral antibody will be a valuable factor to assess. RNA-based qPCR diagnostic tests currently used in Ireland to detect SARS-COV2 viral RNA in a nose/throat swabs can sensitively detect active infection at an early stage of infection but cannot detect immunity to the virus after clearance. This can only be achieved using Immunoglobulin(Ig)-based tests for antibodies against key SARS-COV2 antigens (predominantly virion 'Spike' or S protein). While serological tests are in development for SARS-COV2 antibodies, few are approved for use and will likely be expensive with substantial delays in global distribution. A recent pre-print (Amanat et al., published 18 March 2020) described a novel assay for SARS-COV2 antibodies. The aim of this project is to establish this assay in Ireland, screen SARS-COV2 positive serum samples from Irish patients and determine its accuracy using a larger cohort of SARS-COV2 positive sera. If the method can be replicated, a non-accredited test could be developed to screen the Irish population for post-infection immunity in a rapid and cost-effective manner.

In this study, a comprehensive assessment of how past exposure to viruses impacts risk of COVID-19 in older people will be carried out and how it is linked to inflammageing and anti-viral immunity. A well-established longitudinal ageing cohort, TILDA, which has the detailed demographic, clinical and biomarker information - rich phenotyping data will be combined with a state-of-the-art approach, VirScanTM, to determine a person's complete viral exposure history.