Powerful, double-decker bus-sized microscopes help scientists uncover possible COVID-19 treatment

Researchers at UBC’s faculty of medicine are working with microscopes—some up to 13 feet tall—to help prevent and treat COVID-19.

The research team, led by Sriram Subramaniam, a professor in UBC’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology, is using a powerful imaging technique known as cryo-electron microscopy to take pictures at near-atomic resolution to see how various antibody treatments bind to the virus.

Their hope is to identify critical differences between antibodies that bind and block viral infection, and those that bind but are unable to block infection, providing powerful blueprints for drug and vaccine design. Already, they have helped to uncover how one antibody-based drug, known as Ab8, prevents and neutralizes the virus—a finding recently published in Cell.

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