Researchers at Columbia University in New York State have found a new mixture of antibodies that can be used to treat people with Covid-19 and also protect people at risk of infection.
The researchers collected antibodies from patients of extremely high levels with Covid-19, in hospitals, so that they could be treated by drug companies and transferred to the blood to fight the virus or prevent it from being infected.
Antibodies were collected from 40 patients, 61 types of 5 were identified, able to effectively eliminate the virus, 9 able to determine the pathogen surprisingly, according to the experts' description.
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Cell tests showed that antibodies killed the virus, while experiments with hamsters revealed that pumping one of the most powerful antibodies protects animals from disease.
David Hu, a professor of medicine at the University of Columbia who led the research, said: “The antibody mixture was able to completely disable the infectious virus in the tissue of the hamster lung tissue that was tested.
And he added: "We specifically isolated very strong antibodies that could be mass-produced and thus be more widely available."
Thus it can be used to prevent infection or treatment, especially those who are at risk of developing severe illnesses such as the elderly and those with underlying diseases, and thus prevention can definitely replace vaccines.
Professor Sashdev Sidhu at the University of Toronto plans to introduce neutral antibodies into clinical trials later this year.
"The more antibodies increase, the better," said Sidhu. "The more antibodies increase, it is still a time-consuming process."
Also, having multiple options would be good to ensure that as many patients as possible could get treatment.
Efforts are being made to develop coronavirus vaccines, but there is uncertainty about the effectiveness of any vaccine and the duration of protection afforded by it, and immune responses tend to be weaker in older adults, so even if vaccines become available next year, infusion of antibodies that grow in Laboratories that protect for months at a time will still be valuable.
Antibodies are one of the body’s main lines of defense against viral infection. When the virus invades cells and multiplies, the immune system learns to recognize the intruder and launches antibodies to deactivate the microbe. Antibodies attack the virus from different angles and leak into the proteins from which the virus is made.
The pharmaceutical companies' factories manufacture the antibodies in large quantities, and purified them from the cells grown in large fermentation devices, and Hu said that estimates suggest that the antibody dose may cost $ 50 for production.
Work is under way to test all antibodies in animals, but researchers hope to synthesize enough to start the first stage experiment in humans in October.
If blood transfusions prove safe, efficacy trials may begin early next year, and antibodies can be engineered to last in the blood for three to six months, Hu said.
Blood plasma transfusions containing antibodies from recovered patients indicate that they can help patients before the virus causes catastrophic damage, but cocktails produced in the laboratory are expected to be more effective because they can be designed in a way that ensures they contain high levels of The most effective antibody ..
The antibody mixture is so diverse that researchers believe it will be difficult for the variables to which the virus is subjected to avoid.