Biography
Prof. Rui Gong
Prof. Rui Gong
Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Title: Potent neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2
Abstract: 
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the pathogen that cause Coronavirus (CoV) disease 2019 (COVID-19). To date, SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread globally, with more than 50 million confirmed cases and a mortality rate of about 2-3%. Thus, developing effective drugs remains urgent. The envelope protein of SARS-CoV-2, a typical class I viral fusion protein, is called the spike protein (S protein) and contains two subunits, a surface subunit (S1) and a transmembrane subunit (TM), which are responsible for receptor binding and membrane fusion. The prefusion S protein is trimeric and contains a receptor-binding domain (RBD) on its S1 subunit. Because the RBD is critical for viral entry and is highly antigenic, it is an attractive target for drug and vaccine development. It has been shown that the neutralizing monoclonal antibodies are powerful weapons to fight against infectious diseases. To date, many neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 have been identified and characterized, which might be candidate drugs for clinical use.
Biography: 
Rui Gong, Ph.D., Head of Antibody Engineering Group, Professor, Ph.D. Supervisor. Dr. Gong graduated from Wuhan University in 2002 and received his Ph.D. also in Wuhan University in 2007. He went to National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health, USA in 2007 for his training as a postdoctoral fellow, and joined Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and established Antibody Engineering Group for antibody engineering-related research in 2012. Dr. Gong won Federal Technology Transfer Award (NIH, USA) in 2011 and 2012. He has about thirty publications and one international patent in application. He is hosting or hosted the grants of the Strategic Priority, Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Young Scientist Subject of the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Project), and National Natural Science Foundation of China, etc.

Research Interests: The major goals are to select full-length antibodies and antibody fragments against important and emerging viruses by phage display, yeast display, and other high throughput screening technologies; develop novel C-based single domain antibodies (nanoantibodies) based on scaffolds derived from antibody constant CH2 domains in antibody Fc fragments; and improve biological activities of Fc fragments. We try to elucidate the basic questions (e.g., understand the mechanism of virus-host interactions) in virology, and solve several difficulties for improvement of yield of protein-related drugs during the research and development of therapeutic antibodies (e.g., improve the efficiency of correct folding in proteins).