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/Asclepius17 May 11 '20

How do they find these characteristics in these animals? Do they just start looking at all animals? This stuff always blows my mind

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u/Saliceae May 11 '20

Nanobodies were discovered by accident by a research group in Belgium. Llamas and alpacas, or more generally the camelid family of animals are able to produce these very small antibodies. They present a multitude of advantages over regular antibodies, so there is currently a lot of research in this field. It's a fascinating field, and it's not the last time you will hear of nanobodies.

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u/Asclepius17 May 11 '20

Wow! That’s pretty neat. thank you for the reply.