Sandia Labs FY22 Laboratory Directed Research & Development Annual Report

FY22 ANNUAL REPORT

2021 NATIONAL LAB ACCELERATOR PITCH EVENT. A team of Sandia bioscientists co-won the 2021 National Lab Accelerator Pitch Event, which showcases commercialization-ready technology developed at DOE national laboratories. The team, led by Brooke Harmon, created a platform for discovering, designing, and engineering novel antibody countermeasures for emerging viruses. The process of screening for nanobodies that disable the virus points the way to developing nanobody therapies that protect against COVID-19 and defend against future biological threats.

saw a critical need to create effective therapies that can be rapidly developed and deployed.” Once the protein sequence, or genetic coding, of a virus has been identified, Sandia researchers have shown they can produce a nanobody-based countermeasure within 90 days. The method has not yet been tested on humans. Speeding up the discovery of neutralizing antibodies could reduce the impact of future viral outbreaks. Read more about Sandia’s work defending against future pandemics, and check out Harmon’s winning pitch.

“Vaccines are very good at preventing infection, but they can take a long time to be developed and move through the regulatory process,” Harmon said. “We

Sandia bioscience researchers, from left, Christine Thatcher, Jennifer Schwedler, Yooli Kim Light, Peter McIlroy and Brooke Harmon

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