On Sept. 23, 2021, Tonix Pharmaceuticals announced it had expanded its research collaboration with Columbia University. The research collaboration was focused on studying immune responses to COVID-19 in healthy volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19 or were asymptomatic, as well as studying in vitro T cell and antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The research was designed to fill in important gaps in understanding the detailed immune responses to COVID-19, and to provide a foundation for tailoring vaccines and therapeutics to appropriate individuals with precision medicine.

The two principal investigators for the collaboration are Ilya Trakht, Ph.D., Associate Research Scientist and Sergei Rudchenko, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Trakht is studying T cell and antibody responses in a variety of ways, including at the cellular level by stimulating T cells in vitro with CoV-2 antigens and by generating fully human monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. This research has the potential to lead to the isolation, characterization and cloning of therapeutically relevant fully human neutralizing monoclonal antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

Tonix is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, licensing, acquiring and developing small molecules and biologics to treat and prevent human disease and alleviate suffering. Tonix’s portfolio is primarily composed of immunology and central nervous system (CNS) product candidates. Tonix’s immunology portfolio includes a COVID-19 platform of product candidates to prevent and treat COVID-19, to treat Long COVID as well as to detect functional T cell immunity to COVID-19. Tonix’s lead vaccine candidate for COVID-19, TNX-1800, is a live replicating vaccine based on the horsepox viral vector platform to protect against COVID-19, primarily by eliciting a T cell response.