Don’t lose hope just yet, as there is some exciting news developing from three medical researchers out of Sweden —and although these findings will of course take more time to develop, it is a huge breakthrough in terms of how to we can finally combat the virus itself. And it all began with testing the B Cells of an alpaca named Tyson.
“Using cryo-electron microscopy, we were able to see how the nanobody binds to the viral spike at an epitope which overlaps with the cellular receptor ACE2-binding site, providing a structural understanding for the potent neutralisation activity,” says Leo Hanke, postdoc in the McInerney group and first author of the study.
Nanobodies offer several advantages over conventional antibodies as candidates for specific therapies. They span less than one-tenth the size of conventional antibodies and are typically easier to produce cost-effectively at scale. Critically, they can be adapted for humans with current protocols and have a proven record of inhibiting viral respiratory infections.
Read the full article here.