Facing the Challenges of the COVID-19 Pandemic
As it grows close to a year that the world has been grappling with COVID-19 and pandemic fatigue has begun to set in, there are those still working tirelessly to combat the many issues affecting every aspect of society due to the virus. Always at the forefront of facing global challenges, Agnes Scott graduates have been doing their part and being of service. Asheley Chapman ’06, Joëlle Atere-Roberts ’14, Vaughn Wicker ’19 and Julia Marshall ’19 are just a few of the Scotties fiercely dedicated to doing what they can. — By Nicholyn Hutchinson SCIENCE AS SERVICE
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In a laboratory on Georgia Tech’s campus, with a gloved and steady hand, Asheley Chapman ’06 holds a multichannel micropipette, first pressing on its plunger to draw up liquid samples into the device’s tubes and then again to carefully deposit the contents into one of the rows on a 96-well plate. Amid the ongoing global COVID-19 health crisis, she is at work on what could be one of the critical keys in unlocking discoveries that may save lives. A fifth-year doctoral student in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Chapman is a part of a collaborative research project studying antibodies, with the goal of improving diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and aiding in the development of a safe and effective vaccine. Important players in the human body’s defense against infections, antibodies seek out invading pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, and attach to them to block or destroy them. Under the direction of M.G. Finn, the project’s co-principal investigator and chair of the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Chapman and her colleagues in Finn’s lab are examining methods to enhance the immune system’s response against SARS-CoV-2. “We have designed a series of vaccines for use in mice, presenting to their immune system large synthetic portions of the virus or smaller viral peptides, which are short chains of amino acids.
Asheley Chapman ’06 at work in a Georgia Tech lab, where she is part of a collaborative research project involving SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Photo by Soumen Das. Headshot by Jacquelyn Strickland/Georgia Tech Office of Graduate Studies.
We then boost these mice with formulations that help immune cells, or B cells, create antibodies that bind SARS-CoV-2 tightly with high sensitivity and specificity,” explains Chapman. Georgia Tech provides these lab-made antibodies to its research partners — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Immunodiagnostic Development Team in the Reagent Diagnostic Support Branch, Division of Scientific Resources, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases — that screen and test hundreds of them to identify and isolate the ones that function the best. Chapman says the project’s results have been promising, with several antibodies showing the ability to neutralize the virus. What the research team is learning about these antibodies could lead to a COVID-19 vaccine to prevent infection in humans, the production of reagents (substances for chemical reactions) for detecting
the virus and their use in therapeutic treatments. With the rapid pace at which scientists around the world are racing to solve what Chapman calls “one of the biggest scientific problems of our time,” the pressure they are under is immense. But their commitment is greater. “For everyone working in science, this is our priority right now. We’re not going to stop until we find something that works,” she says. This drive to discover the answers has always been with Chapman and is what drew her to the field of biochemistry. Growing up, she remembers being fascinated by how the interaction of molecules governs the behavior of living systems. “The concept that you can understand the fundamental building blocks of life, and by extension, the way the physical world works, still amazes me,” she says. While she initially enrolled at Agnes Scott College as a biology major, Chapman instead earned a bachelor’s degree in religious
