The Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Society for Immunology established an expert advisory group in early April 2020. Together, the experts reviewed the limited research that is currently available and identified key research priorities.
The expert summary (https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/6495920) reviews what we know about COVID-19 from immunology research and highlights knowledge gaps that could hamper efforts to get the pandemic under control.
Professor Arne Akbar FMedSci, Chair of the advisory group and President of the British Society for Immunology, said: “Immunology is at the heart of some of the most pressing issues in this pandemic, such as the best way to develop vaccines and treatments, how long people with the virus remain infectious, and when or if these people become immune. We brought together 15 leading immunology experts to rapidly review what we now know about COVID-19 and what we most urgently need to find out.”
The review aims to help researchers, funders and policy-makers navigate existing research findings and focus future research on areas that will make the biggest difference to patients and society. The project has also been condensed into a question and answer blog (https://acmedsci.ac.uk/more/news/coronavirus-and-immunology-qa-what-you-need-to-know-about-our-new-report), which is more accessible for those without a research background.
The project highlighted four research questions with high public health impact that could be answered quickly about immunity and four questions about treatment:
Rapid learning about immunity for public health impact
- What, if any, antibody properties confer protection against the virus, and what proportion of antibody responses are protective?
- What are the roles of immune cells from the adaptive (T-cells) and innate systems, such as Natural Killer cells and T-cells, in protective immunity?
- What is the sero-prevalence of SARS-Cov-2 antibodies? What proportion of individuals mount either an antibody, or a cellular response or both after infection?
- How can laboratory-based antibody tests be safely scaled to reliable commercial equivalents that are not confounded by cross-reactivity to other coronaviruses?
Rapid impacts for COVID-19 treatment
- What is the full immunopathology of COVID-19 in the lung and other organs?
- What are the biomarkers predictive of severe disease?
- What is the potential role for antiviral and immunomodulation therapies in COVID-19 treatment?
- How can we reliably test whether COVID-19 patients remain infectious?
This project was a collaboration between the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Society for Immunology, Academy of Medical Sciences staff time and Academy costs for this work were supported by a core grant received annually from the Government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).