The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has led to con­sid­er­able review of virus diag­no­sis, pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of COVID-19, and of oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry pathogens. 

Gre­go­ry Walk­er, who is a PhD stu­dent at our Virol­o­gy Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry in Rand­wick, has been con­duct­ing research to exten­sive­ly eval­u­ate the SARS-CoV­‑2 serol­o­gy assays used by diag­nos­tic laboratories. 

He inves­ti­gat­ed alter­na­tive uses for these plat­forms includ­ing for deter­min­ing pro­tec­tive anti­body titres, and detect­ing anti­bod­ies from dried blood spots to expand access to SARS-CoV­‑2 sero­log­i­cal test­ing among dif­fi­cult-to-sam­ple pop­u­la­tions such as chil­dren and rur­al regions.

The pri­ma­ry aim of his research is to inform guide­lines and clin­i­cal prac­tice sur­round­ing SARS-CoV-2-spe­cif­ic anti­body detec­tion, anti­body-medi­at­ed immu­ni­ty, and the devel­op­ment and use of immunother­a­peu­tics, such as mon­o­clon­al antibodies.

This research has been valu­able in pro­vid­ing real-time virol­o­gy data on emerg­ing SARS-CoV­‑2 vari­ants to inform pub­lic health pol­i­cy, includ­ing vac­ci­na­tion and treat­ment guide­lines. The find­ings, for exam­ple, were cit­ed by the Unit­ed State’s Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) short­ly after the emer­gence of the Omi­cron vari­ant, lead­ing to change in COVID-19 treat­ment guide­lines and practice.

The work per­formed was a col­lab­o­ra­tion between NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and 3 exter­nal research insti­tu­tions. It has result­ed in 8 pub­li­ca­tions in high-impact sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals and mul­ti­ple con­fer­ence presentations.

Gregory’s hope is the devel­op­ment of more robust ther­a­peu­tics could pro­vide options for COVID-19 pre­ven­tion and treat­ment that, to this point in the pan­dem­ic, have been limited.