On Mar. 11, 2020, the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) and the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that a team of researchers had provided the first analysis of potential targets for effective immune responses against the novel coronavirus.

The researchers used existing data from known coronaviruses to predict which parts of SARS-CoV-2 are capable of activating the human immune system. The study was published in Host, Cell and Microbe.

When the immune system encounters a bacterium or a virus, it zeroes in on tiny molecular features, so called epitopes, which allow cells of the immune system to distinguish between closely related foreign invaders and focus their attack. Having a complete map of viral epitopes and their immunogenicity is critical to researchers attempting to design new or improved vaccines to protect against COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2.

While scientists currently know very little about how the human immune system responds to SARS-CoV-2, the immune response to other coronaviruses has been studied and a significant amount of epitope data is available.

Four other coronaviruses are currently circulating in the human population. They cause generally mild symptoms and together they are responsible for an estimated one quarter of all seasonal colds. But every few years, a new coronavirus emerges that causes severe disease as was the case with SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2008, and now SARS-CoV-2.