# Antibody therapy for pneumococcal disease

> **NIH NIH R01** · ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE · 2021 · $417,500

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS conjugate vaccines (PCV) have had remarkable impact in preventing
invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), but there is still a gap in treatment and prevention of pneumococcal
disease as current vaccines are less effective for pneumonia than IPD and less immunogenic in patients most
at risk for disease. My group has a longstanding interest in vaccine-elicited PPS antibodies and how they work.
We made the paradigm-shifting discovery that while some PPS3 monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that protect
mice from serotype 3 (ST3) pneumococcus mediate phagocyte killing of ST3 in vitro (opsonic), others do not
(non-opsonic). These MAb types have distinct PPS3 specificities and require different effectors and FcγRs to
protect mice from ST3 pneumonia. Opsonic antibodies induce early lung bacterial clearance, but non-opsonic
MAbs do not, instead they reduce lung inflammation. These findings challenge prevailing dogma that vaccine
efficacy is solely a function of opsonic antibodies and show there is still much to learn about how PPS
antibodies mediate protection. The goal of this application is to make human monoclonal antibodies (huMAbs)
to treat ST3 pneumonia. Ultimately, we wish to develop a multi-ST huMAb cocktail, but ST3 will be our first
target as PCV13 is less effective for ST3, an important cause of pneumonia that still carries higher risk of death
than other STs. We hypothesize huMAbs that balance ST3 clearance and control of host inflammation will
provide the most protection. We will generate PPS3 huMAbs from pneumococcal vaccine recipients, use a
novel ST3 glycan array to identify huMAb PPS3 epitopes, and determine their functional activities in vitro and
efficacies against ST3 in vivo in colonization, pneumonia, and sepsis models in normal and human (hu)FcγR
transgenic mice. This will identify candidate huMAbs to advance for therapy, reveal potentially new correlates
of protection, and identify potential adjunctive PPS3 antigens to enhance vaccine efficacy for pneumonia. This
project will advance understanding of mechanisms of antibody action and have a major impact on clinical
medicine and public health by removing roadblocks to prevention and treatment of pneumococcal pneumonia
with ideas and an approach that can be applied to any pathogen.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10053301
- **Project number:** 5R01AI123654-06
- **Recipient organization:** ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Liise-anne Pirofski
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $417,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-11-10 → 2022-10-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10053301

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10053301, Antibody therapy for pneumococcal disease (5R01AI123654-06). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10053301. Licensed CC0.

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