We’re learning newly discovered antibodies can neutralize virtually all known variants of COVID-19 and may have the potential to prevent future coronavirus outbreaks.

By isolating antibodies from a COVID-19-vaccinated SARS survivor, researchers found that the combination of prior coronavirus infection and vaccination generated an “extremely broad and powerful” antibody response, capable of stopping nearly all related coronaviruses tested.

Dr. Fahad Razak is a Medical Record panelist on Zoomer Radio’s Fight Back with Libby Znaimer.

He explains the way a vaccine works is to train the immune system to recognize the virus before a person is infected.

“The antibodies that you’ve generated from the vaccination can latch onto the virus particles that prevent you from getting an infection, and that worked really well from the start of the pandemic,” Razak explains, “But the virus has continued to mutate, so the way we trained it early on, the virus now looks sufficiently different that our body doesn’t recognize it and that’s why these new variants continue to infect people.”

In total, the team obtained six antibodies that could neutralize multiple coronaviruses, including COVID-19, its variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron, the original SARS virus, along with multiple other animal coronaviruses.

The researchers found that the most powerful antibody, named E7, was able to neutralize both SARS and COVID-19, along with animal coronaviruses, as well as new COVID-19 variants.

The research is published in the peer-reviewed Science Advances journal Thursday