At the World Vaccine Congress 2025, held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., global leaders in immunology, vaccine science, and biosecurity convened to shape the future of pandemic preparedness and immunotechnology. Athari BioSciences was honored to join this event, showcasing our next-generation neutralizing antibody assay—a dual-reporter platform engineered for speed, clarity, and flexibility in immune surveillance  and therapeutic assessment.

Inside the Platform: Dual-Reporter Assay for Neutralization and Cytotoxicity

We are focused on addressing one of the most pressing needs in infectious disease research: improving how viral immunity and treatment responses are measured. Our goal is to develop tools that function across the full spectrum of use—from laboratory research to clinical settings to field deployment.

The core innovation we brought to the World Vaccine Congress is our dual-reporter neutralizing antibody assay, which simultaneously measures viral infectivity and cell viability in one streamlined, high-throughput test. Developed in collaboration with Virongy BioSciences and leveraging hybrid alpha-pseudovirus technology, the assay overcomes critical limitations of conventional methods:

• Is safely performed in a BSL-2 lab, avoiding the higher safety requirements and cost burdens of BSL-3 containment.
• Measures infection and cytotoxicity in parallel using dual luminescent and fluorescent signals, enabling distinction between viral entry and cell death in a single readout.
• Delivers results within six hours, a significant improvement over the multi-day timeline of the Plaque Reduction Neutralization Test (PRNT), the current gold standard for assessing neutralizing antibodies. This enables faster decision-making in early-phase therapeutic and vaccine development.

The platform both quantifies viral entry and independently measures  cytotoxicity, allowing researchers to confidently distinguish true antiviral effects from false positives due to compound toxicity—a limitation that often compromises traditional single-reporter assays. Requiring only 80 µl of blood, it is well-suited for at-home collection, fingerstick sampling, and decentralized deployment. In benchmarking studies, the assay demonstrated strong correlation with the gold-standard Plaque Reduction Neutralization Test (PRNT), achieving R² values of 0.98 for sensitivity and 0.92 for specificity. These results position the platform as a robust candidate for immunobridging to infer effectiveness of a new drug or vaccine candidate in clinical trials.

Platform Engineering: Modular Design for Rapid Adaptation

The foundation of this assay is a hybrid virus-like particle (VLP) system, initially developed for any variant of SARS-CoV-2. It combines a rapidly expressing alphavirus reporter genome with structural viral proteins, including spike (S), membrane (M), nucleocapsid (N), and envelope (E), creating a non-replicating pseudovirus that closely mimics native viral architecture, which can be safely tested in a BSL-2 laboratory. Unlike spike-only lentiviral systems, our expanded structural protein -VLP design enhances antibody recognition, more accurately reflecting real-world immune interactions. The modular design ensures rapid adaptation to virtually any virus with a known envelope sequence, including Influenza A/B, RSV, Nipah, Lassa, and emerging viral threats.

Why Dual-Reporter Technology Is Essential

Emerging viral threats consistently outpace conventional assay frameworks, as seen with rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants and other zoonotic threats. Traditional neutralization methods have become too slow, fragmented, and dependent on restrictive containment environments to meet contemporary demands. Our dual-reporter assay addresses these critical issues by enabling real-time cross-validation between infection and toxicity, accelerating candidate triage, and preventing false positives caused by toxic compounds mistakenly flagged as antiviral.

A practical demonstration of this advantage came from our evaluation of inhibitors against H5N1 influenza. In side-by-side testing, the assay clearly differentiated the antiviral activity of Tamiflu from the cytotoxic effects of Puromycin. A single-reporter system might have misclassified Puromycin as an effective inhibitor due to signal loss from cell death. Traditionally, identifying cytotoxicity would require a separate assay, doubling the workload to confirm what our platform reveals in a single readout.

Expanding Applications: From Bench to Clinical and Public Health

Initially designed for viral neutralization testing, our assay has rapidly evolved into a multifunctional platform applicable across research, diagnostics, and public health surveillance.

• In research, it allows deep exploration into immune correlates of protection, efficacy of new drug and vaccine candidates, and viral pathogenesis.
• Clinically, the assay is a a CLIA-validated  Laboratory Developed Test (LDT), with potential for future clinical diagnostic applications.
• In public health, it offers a rapidly deployable, scalable surveillance solution for ongoing monitoring of current viral pathogens and outbreak management of emerging viral threats.

Additionally, the platform may have predictive biomarker potential for conditions like Long COVID. Because the assay precisely distinguishes functional neutralization from persistent inflammatory responses, it could help clinicians and researchers correlate specific immune profiles with lingering symptoms. This insight represents a significant step toward more personalized therapeutic interventions and diagnostic precision for complex post-infectious syndromes.

Looking Ahead: Precision as Global Health Infrastructure

The discussions at WVC 2025 reaffirmed an essential principle: scientific precision must transition from concept to operational standard. Athari BioSciences is actively contributing to this transition, developing tools that transform complex biological information into fast, actionable insights suitable for field deployment, clinical precision, and rapid pandemic response. Our goal extends beyond adapting to the current landscape; we aim to define the future of global health infrastructure through innovation that anticipates rather than reacts.

We invite collaborators, investors, and public health leaders to join us in this critical effort to reshape how the world responds to viral threats. The future of immunosurveillance and rapid assessment of new drug and vaccine candidates isn’t a distant vision. At Athari BioSciences, we’re building it now—through platforms designed for precision, speed, and global deployment.