Researchers are seeking to use the blood of cows and mice to obtain treatment for the emerging coronavirus, "SARS Cove 2", which causes Covid-19 disease. After promising results for the drug dexamethasone appeared, American doctors expressed some doubts about it.

And we start from South Dakota in the United States, where the company "SAB Biotherapeutics" expects to start human trials next month on a treatment for Covid-19 disease using antibodies extracted from cattle plasma, according to a report of the American network "CNN".

Genetically engineered for these cows, their immune system became similar to the human immune system, and in this way animals produced human antibodies to fight the emerging corona virus.

The researchers took skin cells from a cow and removed the gene responsible for creating antibodies, and instead they inserted an artificial, industrial chromosome that produces human antibodies.

The researchers put the DNA from those cells into a cow egg and transformed them into a fetus, then planted this embryo in the womb of a cow to start pregnancy, and over the past two decades, they have produced hundreds of genetically identical cows, all with partial human immune systems.

injection

At a later stage, scientists injected some cows with a non-contagious portion of the emerging corona virus, to produce the human antibodies to the virus.

The company has manufactured hundreds of doses of the drug, called SAB-185, for use in its clinical trials. The company has not yet announced whether it will study the use of the drug for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19 disease, or both.

Mice

Last week, another company - Regeneron Pharmaceuticals - announced that it had started human trials of a rat-derived drug for the emerging coronavirus.

"We have inserted genes of the human immune system into mice, so that these mice have a largely human immune system," said company president Dr. George Yankopoulos.

Yankopoulos told CNN in May, "We hope that by the end of the summer we will be able to provide hundreds of thousands of doses to patients in need of prevention and treatment as well."

Scientists extract the strongest human antibodies from mice, and then clone them in unlimited quantities. The company is also working on antibodies extracted from patients who survived Covid-19.

"We are completely removing human antibodies from these magical mice, as well as from human survivors, to maximize our group and ensure selection of the best curative antibody for Covid-19," said company spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie.

Pressure and suspicions

International pressure to find a treatment or vaccine for the emerging corona virus accelerated the publication of the results of studies on the virus, which raises confusion about whether these treatments have proven effective. The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet withdrew an influential study of the disease this month, for data reasons.

A report released on Tuesday on the use of dexamethasone for Covid-19 raised the suspicions and optimism of American doctors at the same time, saying that the withdrawal of an influential study on the disease recently made them want to see more data.

Researchers in Britain said that dexamethasone - a family of steroids - used to treat infections caused by other diseases, had reduced the death rate among critically ill patients from Covid-19 by about a third, and they would work to publish full details soon.

But after a few hours, South Korea's top medical official warned against using this drug to treat Covid-19 conditions, due to possible side effects.

"We have been bitten before, not only during the outbreak of the Corona virus, but before it, from exciting results that turned out to be unconvincing when we looked at their data," said Dr. Catherine Hebert, director of the intensive care unit at Harvard University's Massachusetts General Hospital.

Publish the data

Hebert added that the publication of the data may help to evaluate the results and determine the patients who can make the most use of the drug, as well as the appropriate doses. "I very much hope that this is real, because it will be a major step forward in our ability to help patients," but she stressed that she would not change treatment practices at this point.

Doctor Thomas McGinn, deputy chief physician at Northwell Health, the largest health care system in New York, warned that drugs from the steroid family could suppress the immune system. He told Reuters that doctors use steroids on a case-by-case basis.

"We must see what the study will look like (at the end of the day) given the prevailing pattern of studies (studies) currently ... I am waiting to see the real data and whether it will be subject to peer review and find its way to publish in a real journal," he added.

Washington University physician Mark Warrell urged researchers to display data before the official publication.

"This would be very helpful in helping us to compare our patients with their patients and to determine whether the drug is appropriate for use in patients," he said.

praise

For his part, British Health Minister Matt Hancock praised today, Wednesday, the use of dexamethasone in treating patients with Coronavirus, considering it the best news so far regarding the outbreak.

"It really increases the chances of a very significant recovery," Hancock told Sky News. "It is one of the best news we have had during this entire crisis."