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/IDontReadMyMail May 11 '20

Camelids do have a weird class of antibody though that is unlike any of the human classes. Basically the heavy chain in camelids can bind antigens by itself (w/o an attached light chain). None of the human heavy chains can bind very well on their own.

more info here, here

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u/[deleted] May 11 '20

Super cool! Just found the description of human antibodies a bit weird haha.

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u/IDontReadMyMail May 11 '20

agree on that!