Coordinating outbreak research: Assoc Prof David Lye

Assoc Prof David Lye from NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine is a senior consultant in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Singapore’s Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He is also the Director of the Infectious Disease Research and Training Office at Singapore’s National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

In his latter role, he coordinates national research efforts on the COVID-19 outbreak, including an outbreak protocol called PROTECT in close collaboration with infectious disease doctors from across Singapore’s public hospitals.

The PROTECT protocol includes guidelines on the collection of clinical samples of COVID-19 patients, which enable several scientific institutions in Singapore to study the biology of SARS-CoV-2, as well as answer questions in genomics, immunology, host susceptibility and antibody response.

The PROTECT group also collaborates with radiologists, intensive care specialists and obstetricians at several national hospitals. Working closely with Singapore’s Ministry of Health, Assoc Prof Lye also helps to ensure that outbreak research is rapid and responsive to the needs of the national outbreak response, and encourages collaborative and non-duplicative research among partners.

Recently bearing fruit is their observational cohort study of COVID-19 patients, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. Assoc Prof Lye and colleagues in the Singapore 2019 Novel Coronavirus Outbreak Research team found higher amounts of viable virus particles in patients at early stages of the disease. They also discovered that more severe manifestations of the disease in patients were associated with stronger immune response, a finding that may improve doctors’ ability to prognosticate disease development and provide case-specific advice on therapeutic approaches.

In collaboration with US scientists, Assoc Prof Lye contributed to the development of highly potent antibodies that are able to bind the spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 and prevent the virus from docking onto and infecting cells. Published in Science, the research holds great promise in the development of antibody-based therapeutics for the treatment of COVID-19.

Assoc Prof Lye was also part of a team that developed a simple, robust and fast serological test to detect anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in blood samples, allowing rapid determination of infection rate and herd immunity in populations and helping to shed light on critical questions in antibody protection and vaccine efficacy. Described in a paper published in Nature Biotechnology, the test achieved nearly 100% specificity and sensitivity and could support the wider community in both research and clinical applications.