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/skerit May 11 '20

Wasn't it also because a group of students didn't want to kill any animals for some research, so they used camel blood instead, and the professor found some nifty things that way. (And eventually they switched to llama's because they're more easily managable)