Credit: The Wistar Institute PHILADELPHIA -- (Dec. 15, 2020) -- A team of scientists from The Wistar Institute, INOVIO, AstraZeneca, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Indiana University has received a $37.6 million award over two years from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) for rapid preclinical development and translational studies of DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies (DMAbs) as countermeasures for COVID-19. DMAbs, unlike conventional therapeutic antibodies, are administered as genetic blueprints that instruct the patient's body to build its own highly specific antibodies against pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, and as immunotherapeutics for cancer. Conceptually DMAbs have advantages over traditional monoclonal antibodies in scale-up and delivery, which would rapidly benefit large populations.