Serimmune Announces Use of Its SERA Platform in Study Designed to Identify Features of Long COVID Through Immune Profiling

Mount Sinai-Yale Long COVID (MY-LC) study found key differences in the blood of Long COVID patients.

GOLETA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Serimmune, a leader in understanding the antibody repertoire's role in human disease, announced today the publication of a study in Nature in which their proprietary Serum Epitope Repertoire Analysis (SERA) technology platform was one of the methods used to analyze the biological processes associated with the development and persistence of Long COVID symptoms, such as fatigue, brain fog and malaise. The cross-sectional study of 273 individuals, which included multi-dimensional immune phenotyping and unbiased machine learning, determined that there are significant biological differences in the blood of people experiencing Long COVID compared to the control group of those who are not, even after one year.

In the article titled, “Distinguishing features of Long COVID identified through immune profiling,” the authors describe how complementary approaches, including Serimmune's SERA platform and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were used to examine antiviral reactivity patterns in participants. The SERA platform was also used to analyze non-SARS-CoV-2 antigens. Findings from the study showed that individuals with Long COVID have elevated antibody responses directed against both SARS-CoV-2 and non-SARS-CoV-2 viral antigens, particularly Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antigens.

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that even though the rate of Long COVID is declining, one in four adults with Long COVID struggle to perform activities-of-daily-living. This impacts their quality of life, ability to work or provide care for others.

“The burdens of this disease are great and touch the lives of many of our families and friends,” said Malek Faham, MD, PhD, CEO of Serimmune. “We are driven to improve the way diseases like Long COVID are diagnosed and treated through our state-of-the-art immunology, next generation sequencing, bioinformatics and machine learning. We partner with academic institutions, biopharma, healthcare organizations and government so we can assist them with their immune-related research, product development and healthcare decisions.”

SERA is a universal serology platform that utilizes bacterial display peptide library technology and next generation sequencing to broadly profile antibody repertoires and identify the antigens and epitopes associated with many diseases – all in a single assay.

About Serimmune

Serimmune is a leader in understanding antibody repertoire and is focused on identifying and exploiting the universe of relationships between antibodies and antigens. The company’s Serum Epitope Repertoire Analysis (SERA) technology platform applies bacterial display peptide libraries, next generation sequencing, machine learning and custom bioinformatics to reveal the many diverse antigens stimulating immunity. Serimmune’s human immunity map is a growing database that can be interrogated to uncover disease information for the development of multiplex diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics. The company was founded in 2014 and is backed by investors such as Illumina Ventures, LabCorp, and Merck. For more information visit serimmune.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.