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UNITED KINGDOM
Coronavirus: Llamas provide key to immune therapy By Victoria GillScience correspondent, BBC News An�bodies are part of what is known as the adap�ve immune system; they are molecules that essen�ally morph in response to an invading virus or bacteria. "Then if you get re-infected," explained Prof Naismith, "your body looks for any [virus par�cles] with an�bodies stuck around them and destroys them." This type of immune therapy essen�ally boosts a sick person's immune system with an�bodies which have already adapted to the virus.
As Fifi the llama munches on grass on a pasture in Reading, her immune system has provided the template for a coronavirus treatment breakthrough.
There is already evidence that an�body-rich blood, taken from people who have recently recovered from the coronavirus, could be used as a treatment. But the key trick with this llama-derived an�body therapy is that the scien�sts can produce coronavirus-specific an�bodies to order. The small re-engineered part of the llama an�body is also known as a nanobody, said Prof Naismith.
Scien�sts from the UK's Rosalind Franklin Ins�tute have used Fifi's specially evolved an�bodies to make an immuneboos�ng therapy.
"In the lab, we can make nanobodies that kill the live virus extremely well - be�er than almost anything we've seen," he added. "They're incredibly good at killing the virus in culture."
The resul�ng llama-based, Covid-specific "an�body cocktail" could enter clinical trials within months.
The nanobodies do that by binding - or locking onto - what is known as the "spike protein" on the outside of the virus capsule; disabling that spike prevents it from gaining access to human cells.
The development is published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. It involves "engineering" llama an�bodies, which are rela�vely small, and much more simply structured than the an�bodies in our own blood. That size and structure means they can be "redesigned" in the lab. Unlocking coronavirus Professor James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Ins�tute - and the lead researcher - described the technique as akin to cu�ng a key that fits the coronavirus lock. "With the llama's an�bodies, we have keys that don't quite fit - they'll go into the lock but won't turn all the way round," he said. "So we take that key and use molecular biology to polish bits of it, un�l we've cut a key that fits."
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