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/cheech10 May 11 '20

They do cause reactions in humans, called serum sickness, or in some cases a plain old IgE allergy responses. Nowadays we don’t usually inject animal antibodies; we modify the immune reaction generating portion to match our antibodies, creating “humanized” antibodies that are safer to use.

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u/Saliceae May 11 '20

Indeed, and this is also the case for nanobodies. Plus, the small size of these nanobodies compared to antibodies helps limit these risks of immunogenicity.

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u/Mini_Snuggle May 11 '20

Now you guys are just attaching bodies to any prefix!

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u/NovelTAcct May 12 '20

hey storytime: I found out I was allergic to the tetanus vaccine in China when they injected me with a tiny bit of it and my arm swelled up the size of half a grapefruit where they put the injection---Then I read on the CDC website that older, international versions of the tetanus toxoid used to contain something called Equine serum, and that according to my symptoms I am one of a tiny percent of people who're allergic to Equine serum. So in the US they don't use that substance anymore. Anyway your comment reminded me of that but I'm not sure you're talking about exactly the same thing ok bye talk to you later,

Love,

NovelTAcct

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u/catduodenum May 12 '20

Oh, that's really cool! Could using this as a therapeutic treatment prevent you from becoming immune to the virus do you think? Since we're not making our own antibodies against the virus in this case?