A team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has proven that antibodies isolated from the immune systems of recovered COVID-19 patients are effective in neutralizing known strains of the virus, including the Delta and the Omicron variants.

Researchers have declared this a scientific breakthrough. The discovery could remove the need for frequent booster immunizations.

Dr. Natalia Freund, along with doctoral students Michael Mor and Ruofan Lee from the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at TAU, led the study. Dr. Ben Croker of the University of California, San Diego, collaborated on it. Professor Ye Xiang of Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Professor Meital Gal-Tanamy and Dr. Moshe Dessau of Bar-Ilan University were also involved in the research.

The findings were reported in the journal Nature Communications Biology.

Freund and her colleagues sequenced all B immune system cells from the blood of those who recovered from the original COVID strain in Israel and discovered nine antibodies produced by patients. In addition, the researchers learned that some of these antibodies are highly effective at neutralizing the coronavirus subtypes Delta and Omicron.