African-Rapid Immuno-Surveillance System for Epidemic Response (ARISE)

Christian Happi of Redeemer's University in Nigeria will assess the impact and risks of emerging SARS-CoV-2 virus variants in Africa, which are threatening vaccination efforts. They will produce viral pseudotypes using genomic sequences of around ten SARS-CoV-2 variants-of-concern that are dominant in Africa. These pseudotypes will be used in high-throughput neutralization assays with Vero cells in the presence of serum samples taken from over 400 vaccinated or previously-infected Nigerians, which contain many different types of antibodies, to evaluate their ability to neutralize the viral variants. This will reveal how well protected the population is against viral variants, and inform vaccine and immunization strategies. The serum samples that strongly protect against a range of SARS-CoV-2 variants will be subjected to single-cell immunoglobulin gene sequencing to identify neutralizing monoclonal antibodies for designing more effective vaccines.