Central Laboratory Services

Central Laboratory Services were critically important to Canada’s success and scientific productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comprised of laboratories run by CoVaRR-Net members in Toronto (Gingras Lab | Anne-Claude Gingras; Rini Lab | James M. Rini; and Wrana Lab | Jeff Wrana) and Ottawa (Langlois Lab | Marc-André Langlois) these Central Laboratory Services were funded in part by CoVaRR-Net.

These laboratories were called Central Laboratory Services because they were essential infrastructure not only to most CoVaRR-Net researchers, but to many Canadian health researchers during the pandemic. They provided essential infrastructure, advanced methodologies, standardized assays, and shared reagents that enabled the comprehensive evaluation of immune responses and pathogen characterization across multiple research groups.

These shared resources continue to be highly cost-effective, significantly reducing duplication of efforts, resources, and expenses that would otherwise occur across individual laboratories. They also facilitate a rapid-response capability, essential for promptly addressing emerging public health threats. Centralization allows for the use of standardized methodologies and identical reagents, greatly enhancing comparability and reliability of results across studies. Critically, operating these sophisticated Central Laboratory Services requires highly trained and specialized personnel with expertise in high-throughput analyses, advanced assay development, and rigorous quality control. Centralizing these resources ensures effective support and retention of this critical human resource capacity.

Six main components form the backbone of these shared laboratory services:

1. SEROLOGY

The Gingras and Langlois Labs have established high-throughput automated platforms for SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. Using antigens produced by the National Research Council of Canada, these platforms collectively processed over 2 million assays on more than 200,000 unique samples during the pandemic. These serological analyses inform seroprevalence studies, track antibody responses over time, and identify subpopulations with suboptimal responses to vaccination, directly influencing public health strategies such as timely booster vaccinations.

2. SURROGATE NEUTRALIZATION ASSAYS (snELISA)

These assays are designed to measure the functional neutralizing antibody responses elicited by vacci­nation and natural SARS-CoV-2 infection. They enable rapid, high-throughput assessment of immunity and potential vulnerability to emerging variants, leveraging diverse sample sets from the CoVaRR-Net Biobank and coordinated surveillance activities.

3. VLP NEUTRALIZATION ASSAYS

Virus-like particle (VLP) neutralization assays are critical tools specifically adapted to assess neu­tralizing antibody responses against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs). By closely mimicking authentic viral structures without infectious risks, these assays provide essential insights into variant-specific immune escape potential, particularly important in evaluating populations with hybrid immunity from vaccination and prior infection.

4. SPAR-SEQ FOR PROFILING NEW RESPIRATORY PATHOGENS

Led by Jeff Wrana, SPAR-Seq technology provides a powerful, high-resolution platform capable of rapidly identifying and characterizing known and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as new respira­tory pathogens. This method combines high-throughput sequencing with barcoded molecular tagging, greatly enhancing the speed and accuracy of pathogen surveillance and identification efforts.

5. GENERATION OF NEW SARS-COV-2 VARIANT SPIKE CONSTRUCTS

The Gingras Lab continuously designs and produces new spike protein expression constructs corre­sponding to emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants. These constructs serve as critical tools in developing assays such as VLP neutralization assays, helping researchers understand variant

6. PROTEIN SPIKE ANTIGENS

Teams led by Gingras and Rini specialize in producing small-batch, high-quality recombinant spike antigens representing diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants. These antigens are essential for a wide range of applications, including serological assays, snELISA, and binding affinity studies, facilitating comprehen­sive studies on immune responses and antibody-antigen interactions.

Together, these Central Laboratory Services act collaboratively, saving money by not duplicating efforts and being efficient by leveraging each other’s expertise and shared resources, making them crucial infrastructure to maintain on an ongoing basis.