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Its a screen displaying a protein. One approach to the vaccine is by looking at it as a protein folding problem. They're trying to find a protein that can bind
by ksk 7y ago
Its a screen displaying a protein. One approach to the vaccine is by looking at it as a protein folding problem. They're trying to find a protein that can bind to the 'spike' of the corona-virus and prevent it from attaching to our cells.
- l33tman 7y agoTo be pedantic, that would not be a vaccine, that would be an anti-viral drug. What they were doing here is expressing parts of the actual corona virus antigens on a "baseplate" that could contain many copies of it, in the hope that the human immune system would catch up on it if presented to the body and the resulting antibodies would possibly be effective against the coronavirus. Regarding antiviral drugs for this, the corona-virus entry mechanism was elucidated and candidate inhibitors for this were located in previous articles during the last week ( https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30229-4 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30229-4 )
- ksk 7y agoYeah, I should have known better than to say that given that I work in the vaccine field, but not as a scientist. I guess I deserved that :P