July 2, 2022, Prof. Bei Yang, co-founder of CorrectSequence Therapeutics (Correctseq), participated in Antigen & Antibody Discovery and Precision Medicine Conference and made a speech titled “Antigenic Mapping by HDX-MS Reveals Sites of Vulnerability on α-HCoVs Spike Protein”. 3 academicians, 10 experts shared their newest research in the field of antigen & antibody. The conference was held online and attracted 6600 attendees. (The First Antigen & Antibody Discovery and Precision Medicine Conference Successfully Held)

Prof. Bei Yang, co-founder of Correctseq, shared the newest research about the antigenicity of circulating human coronaviruses (HCoVs) Spike (S) proteins. Coronaviruses that are widespread in nature have potential for interracial transmission to infect humans because of its inherent high genomic variability. Spike proteins are the most important moleculars that mediate the invasion of the coronavirus into the host, also the main antigenic target for inducing the host to produce neutralizing antibodies. The systematic research about antigenic signatures of 7 extant HCoVs Spike proteins is important for discovery of immunologically conserved sites of HCoVs Spike proteins to guide broad-spectrum vaccine development. There is much research about β HCoVs Spike proteins, but less research about α HCoVs Spike proteins. So Prof. Bei Yang focus on α HCoV-229E to study the antigenic signatures of α HCoVs Spike proteins. Her lab team isolated a panel of neutralizing antibodies against the HCoV-229E Spike protein and characterized their epitopes through HDX-MS. Through this they described the immune vulnerability of α HCoVs Spike proteins and revealed the the antigenic similarities and variance of α HCoVs Spike proteins and β HCoVs Spike proteins. It supported the feasibility of vaccine development against a subset of HCoVs.

Prof. Bei Yang’s Lab focuses on protein engineering and infectious disease, developing new therapies by finding new targets. Her research promotes to design immune focused vaccines, develop small molecule or peptide inhibitors of infectious diseases, develop gene therapy products, which will help Correctseq build multiple pipelines for common diseases and infectious diseases with more competitiveness.

In recent years, Prof. Bei Yang found 3C protein is not only a kind of protease, but also an important regulation role in the gene copy process of Enterovirus by HDX-MS and X-ray crystallography, which proved that 3C protein has target function. Besides, Prof. Bei Yang found its corresponding target site. This will help to develop antiviral drugs(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 2020). Meanwhile, Prof. Bei Yang and the other three co-founders of Correctseq Prof. Jia Chen, Prof. Li Yang, Prof. Hao Yin, created a series of precise and efficient gene editing system(Cell Res., 2017; Nat. Biotechnol., 2018a; Nat. Biotechnol., 2018b; Cell Rep., 2020; Nat. Cell Biol., 2021), among which, tBE(transformer base editor) can be delivered into animal body safety to edit mutated gene precisely and efficiently. 

The first IND pipeline of Correctseq is for β thalassemia which using new base editing technology tBE develop a new gene editing therapy. Compared with Cas Nuclease gene editing therapy, tBE exhibits higher editing efficiency and γ-globin induction, lower cytotoxicity and no off-target mutations. What’s more, multiple pipelines for genetic diseases, tumor immunotherapy, metabolic diseases, and infectious diseases are well underway. Correctseq will develop more multiple pipelines for diseases with the leading-edge research of Prof. Bei Yang.

Dr. Bei Yang

Co-founder of Correctseq, Professor of Shanghai Institute for Advanced Immunochemical Studies (SIAIS). She had been the postdoc fellow of University of California, Berkeley, and National Institutes of Health (NIH). She received bachelor’s degree from Wuhan University and a doctorate degree from Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has won Pujiang Talent. Prof. Yang is an expert in protein engineering and infectious disease. Her studies were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Nature Cell Biology, Science Advances, eLife, etc.