Interview Highlights: Finding Powerful Antibodies to Fight COVID-19 with David Ho

Cover illustration by: Arooba Ahmed (CC '23)

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Interview by: Hannah Lin (CC '23)

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David Ho, MD, is the Clyde '56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine and the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC) at Columbia University.

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The following is a heavily condensed version of the full interview. If you're interested, read more here.


Could you describe your COVID-19 research?

We have multiple projects going on in the lab:
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​1. Isolating monoclonal antibodies.

Once infected, people mount an antibody response directed to the virus, and we are trying to find special patients whose blood contains very powerful antibodies that could kill SARS-CoV-2. We’ve screened about 40-some patients.

We’ve been working very hard for the last couple months on 5 cases in particular, and we have been able to pull out lots of very potent antibodies that could kill SARS-CoV-2. I think we’ve been pretty excited about our results because we have found some antibodies that have never been described and are also very powerful ones.

​2. Developing drugs for SARS-CoV-2 by targeting an enzyme of the virus called protease. 

Protease is a chemical scissor that is required to cut the viral proteins from big chunks to small pieces, and if you find a drug that can gum up that chemical scissor, the virus can no longer replicate and therefore would be blocked. 

We have a few chemical compounds that could do so, but not at very high activity at this point. We need to continue to work with chemists to synthesize what we call analogs, or related compounds, to see if any one of them will exhibit greater activity against the protease. 

3. Developing rapid tests so we can quickly measure whether someone has the infection or not. 

4. Pathogenesis studies: how the virus or its viral proteins could be triggering a bunch of immunological cascades--how that triggers the immune system to do damage to various organs—going from the lung to the heart to the kidneys to the liver, and even to the nervous system. 
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​Have you faced any setbacks in your research thus far?

In general, I would say we have not had major setbacks so far. Everybody’s working 24/7. It’s all hands on deck, and the progress we have made in the last 2-3 months would rival progress that a laboratory would normally make in 2-3 years. It’s rather remarkable the speed with which research is being conducted. Not just in my lab, but in many labs throughout the world because of this pandemic.

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Developing solutions that may treat potential future viruses has been a focus of your group. Why is it so significant to look ahead?

If we had continued funding the research on SARS, we would be way ahead today. This is the third epidemic, or pandemic, in the last 20 years due to a coronavirus. Surely, others will emerge, so we need to broadly prepare for those we know about that exist in animal species. We are obviously trying to fix the current pandemic, but in the back of our minds, we are seeking solutions that could be broadened to cover other related viruses. 

​Are there any misconceptions about COVID-19 you’d like to set straight?

I think this pandemic is a real threat; one should not trivialize it. Most people don’t, but there’s a segment of society that has been believing that this isn’t such a big deal, and that’s because they haven’t seen the carnage or devastation that we see in the medical center here. 

While pausing at home is difficult, it is the proper thing to do to bring this outbreak under control. Fortunately, in New York, I think we’ve picked up well over the last couple months. But throughout the country, there are many regions that are not doing all that well, and yet they’re still opening up. As a specialist in this area, it frightens me a great deal.

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What is your perspective on the future?

This pandemic is here to stay for a while, and our lives are going to be changed for a long time. We need to take it seriously, and everyone should do everything possible to mitigate transmission of this virus to buy scientists time to come up with solutions. 

On the science side, I think we’re getting a real boost, 

particularly in virus research. It’s a reminder of how important this work is. We spend billions on defense against a foreign power, and yet we spend relatively little against a foe like this kind of virus; look at the devastation that has caused. This is nothing new; scientists have been saying a pandemic will come; it’s only a matter of when, not if. Yet the leadership of our country and many other countries simply don’t believe that. Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for everyone.