Developing Antibody Defenses

Long before the coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic began, four research groups - two at universities and two at biotechnology companies - were preparing for it by tackling a seemingly outlandish challenge proffered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense: find a stopgap defense against emerging pathogens, so people would have protection until a longer-term solution, notably a vaccine, became available. Under the challenge, called the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) program, the groups were to develop technology that would generate a treatment within 60 days of a virus being identified, and have that treatment begin to confer protection within three days of it being administered [1].