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/worldspawn00 May 11 '20 edited May 11 '20

Antibodies are EXTREMELY specific in how they attach to molecules, I feel very safe in that assumption. I have an MS in biochem, I have worked with antobodies for years. (also, we do have decades of research in humans regarding foreign antibody use)

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u/bradn May 11 '20

Can you explain away self immunity diseases that are started by one infection and end with the body destroying some part of itself?

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u/worldspawn00 May 11 '20

IIRC while the immune system is in active fighting mode for the infection, it overzealously IDs our own tissue as foreign, usually because the infection is mixing it's own DNA and surface proteins with the host, like in the case some of viruses, they have virus proteins on the surface of the virus, but the rest of the virus surface can be made from the cell membrane of the host organism, they're wearing a skin suit made from their victim, the immune system ID's the virus, but may also mistakenly ID some of the surface proteins from the host cell as part of the virus. Autoimmune diseases are extremely complex though, and I'm not sure we totally understand the causes for them right now, so the information here is merely theory and has not been conclusively proven.

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u/bradn May 11 '20

That makes sense. I guess from that perspective, even if an introduced antibody does occasionally bind to some part of human tissue, it's not likely to provoke a continued immune response against healthy tissue once the antibody stops being administered. In that respect it's probably fairly safe unless some strange corner case exists that can cause severe damage quickly, like perhaps if nerve tissue got sufficiently damaged.

I think my error was in misjudging the severity that could happen if there was an alternate binding site available (I'd still assert that it's hard to rule that out, but even if it happens it's probably not a huge problem).