On Aug. 18, 2020, researchers from HKU-Pasteur Research Pole at the School of Public Health, LKS Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKUMed) used Luciferase Immunoprecipitation System (LIPS) assay and discovered that ORF8 and ORF3b are major targets of SARS-CoV-2 humoral immune response and can be used for more specific testing of COVID-19 infection.

The study was the first among research teams worldwide to determine the most comprehensive ﾓlandscapeﾔ of antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2. The ground-breaking findings on COVID-19 serology were published in Nature Immunology.