Development of vaccines and therapeutics to target outbreaks of infectious diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 requires speed and agility. An essential part of this rapid response are technologies designed to streamline and accelerate workflows while delivering high quality data for informed decision-making.

This compendium of applications demonstrates the use of the Octet® label-free platform utilizing bio-layer interferometry (BLI) technology to advance development of coronavirus vaccine and therapeutics.

The fluidic-free approach offers important advantages over microfluidics-based technologies such as surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The Octet® BLI platform enables specific capture and analysis of target molecules in complex matrices such as cell culture supernatants, serum, plasma and other media. This eliminates the need to purify antibodies and other recombinant proteins for screening and eliminates intense cleaning procedures or the risk of sample clogging. These features enable users to easily vary assay and biosensor conditions. A non-destructive measurement allows the reuse of precious samples resulting in fast and low-cost assay optimization.

Additional benefits of the Octet® platform include:

• High-throughput kinetic interaction analysis solutions to accelerate selection and characterization of antigenic targets, vaccines and therapeutic candidates
• Fast and flexible platform for antibody epitope characterization and coverage determination
• Efficient workflows with a wide range of biosensors tailored for vaccine development and manufacturing such as vaccine potency, stability and titer measurements
• Powerful and intuitive data analysis software tools to reduce the time to actionable results

Affinity characterization, neutralization and competition studies are essential in the selection of high affinity and potentially neutralizing lead candidates for therapeutic and vaccine development against the novel SARS-CoV-2. Kinetic analysis is essential to describe the components of association and dissociation that comprise the overall affinity, while cross-competition assays allow for the identification of more optimal candidates.

Many peer-reviewed publications reflecting three key applications of the Octet® platform in the development of coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics summarized in this guide:

• Determination of coronavirus receptor binding mechanisms and cross-reactivity
• Development of neutralizing antibodies
• Design and validation of a peptide inhibitor to block viral entry

In addition to the studies described in the application guide, researchers have used Octet® assays to characterize and investigate other members of the coronavirus or associated species where the observations and results are invaluable towards implementing and framing current therapeutic strategies for SARS-CoV-2. The Octet® platform has been deployed in vaccine development research programs for other viruses such as HIV, influenza and Ebola, and has been used to evaluate vaccine agents such as nanoparticles, virus-like particles (VLPs) and bispecific antibodies.