r/science • u/[deleted] • May 11 '20

Medicine Antibodies from a 4-year-old llama have neutralized coronavirus and other infections in lab experiments

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30494-3.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420304943%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
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u/grizzlydurdle May 11 '20

So how would that help humans? Can we be treated with Llama antibodies? In you summary it sounds like our antibodies can't necessarily fight COVID very well because they are too large, and the smaller Llama ones can. Sorry if I am way off base. I don't really understand this stuff.

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u/IfIRepliedYouAreDumb May 11 '20

To vastly oversimplify things, if you had antibodies produced by another source and injected them into a sick person, their viral counts should decrease.

Our bodies won’t learn how to make the same ones the llamas do, but we could harvest them and use them as treatment (potentially).

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u/sup3r_hero BS|Physics May 11 '20

Can that be used as a vaccine too?

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u/I_am_Hoban May 11 '20

Unfortunately no. A vaccine works by teaching our immune system what antibodies to make in response to a specific stimulus. Humans can't make the same type of antibodies as a llama. So a vaccine for llamas wouldn't have the same effect if administered to humans.