Foreign Property News | Posted by Aye Myat Thu
Antibodies from Winter, a 4-year-old llama with great eyelashes, have neutralized coronavirus and other infections in lab experiments.
ome scientists hope she might be an important figure in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
She is not a superpowered camelid. Winter was simply the lucky llama chosen by researchers in Belgium, where she lives, to participate in a series of virus studies involving both SARS and MERS.
Finding that her antibodies staved off those infections, the scientists posited that those same antibodies could also neutralize the new virus that causes Covid-19.
They were right, and published their results Tuesday in the journal Cell.
Scientists have long turned to llamas for antibody research. In the last decade, for example, scientists have used llamas’ antibodies in H.I.V. and influenza research, finding promising therapies for both viruses.
Additional studies may also be needed to verify the safety of injecting a llama’s antibodies into human patients.
“There is still a lot of work to do to try to bring this into the clinic,” Dr. Xavier Saelens, a molecular virologist at Ghent University in Belgium and an author of the new study said.
Ref: nytimes
