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UCSF team has engineered a tiny antibody capable of neutralizing the coronavirus
- mikeytown2 6y agocould this be used for rapid testing? Even if it's not safe for in the body use it seems like there's other ways that this could be used.
- ramraj07 6y agoNanobodies have been around for decades, and there are reasons why they're not part of any drugs - half life is bonkers terrible (months for regular mammalian antibodies vs. hours) + non zero risk of immune reactions towards these foreign (to our genome) proteins. Source: PhD (partly) in antibody engineering
- dnautics 6y agoI came here to same more or less the same thing. They are, however (potentially) a good analytical tool.
- ramraj07 6y agoAlso probably a good imaging agent, but then that's like the consolation prize for every "promising" targeting approach who's "only" flaw is a shitty half life, so no end to competition!
- zasz 6y agoIt does say in the article it could be a helpful treatment for people who have tested positive for covid. Do you think that's just hype, or could it actually be helpful?
- ramraj07 6y agoSeems boilerplate "could be helpful to cure xxx" statements written in press releases and grants for most research findings; neutralizing antibodies do seem to help in mitigating worse outcomes (among others Lily sells a concoction) but even when they have good half lives it looks like the neutralizers don't do too much; there's no benefit I can see for something with orders of magnitude lower half life still.
- colechristensen 6y ago“Could be” in this context is more like “hasn’t been conclusively proven impossible”. Unless somebody is taking about human trials it is exploratory and not worth getting anybody’s hopes up unless your hopes involve grant money and publishing papers.
- benrapscallion 6y agoMostly hype.
- dbcooper 6y agoAbsolutely right, Pfizer has failed on those as drug candidates for the last 20 years.
- curiousboon 6y agoThis is cheaper to produce and can be take more regularly than monoclonal antibodies. The more options the better!
- ramraj07 6y agoThe only places where short half life proteins have been useful is if you're delivering toxic substances and you don't want any off target effects (see BiTes - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-specific_T-cell_engager https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-specific_T-cell_engager ) the technology behind the targeted becomes less relevant if you don't care about the half life. You can make antibody fragments that are only slightly larger that are still fine.
- zepin 6y ago> and there are reasons why they're not part of any drugs Caplacizumab (Cablivi®) is a Nanobody (2 VH units linked together) approved by the EMA since 2018 (and by the FDA since 2019).
- ramraj07 6y agoTouche, there do seem to be approvals. I'll edit my post.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoOne example of a very new drug; do you have any others? Any studies on its efficacy and side effects?
- FrojoS 6y agoIt’s a bit unfair to ask the parent to do this legwork. The fact that it got approved implies that it is effective and that side effects are rare and/or relatively minor. Edit: From the phase II trial: “ Adverse events overall were similar between groups, with the exception of bleeding, which occurred more often with the immunoglobulin treatment (54% versus 38%). The two participants who died were both in the placebo group.” https://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/VenousThrombosis/56154 https://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/VenousThrombosis/561...
- AstralStorm 6y agoMind you this is used for TTP and thrombosis, where short lifetime is a benefit. You want to remove the clotting factor now, not forever. (We have drugs for that too.)
- est31 6y agoShort lifetime can be a benefit for anti-Covid medication too. An antibody could cross react with a vaccine and hamper the immune system response, preventing it from launching a proper reaction and creating proper immunity. You don't want the person having to wait for weeks while being vulnerable until they can get a vaccine after a successful therapy with antibodies. But of course, distribution is a headache.
- lifeplusplus 6y agoisn't the point to reduce severity... in icu with ventilator vs little cough? if viral load annihilated the immune response would be light and less damage to organs.
- maybelsyrup 6y agoDid anyone else read the headline here on HN, then look to the right at the parentheses that says "ucsf.edu" as the source, then think to themselves "press release from university PR department", get a bit suspicious, then decide not to click on the article and move on with their evening? I'm not hating, exactly -- universities do cool stuff often, and I like to hear about it. But when the source is the university itself it seems a bit like COI. (And lo, ramraj07 and others' comments bear this out: not much to see here.) Edit: after some backlash, let me clarify: I'm asking whether others look askance at university press releases. In my experience, they're often as fluffy as press releases from corporations and the like, which was a letdown early on for me. Does this anecdote align with anyone else's experience?
- tebuevd 6y agofeel free to dig up the Science paper then and read it
- detaro 6y agoWeird how you ended up in this comment section despite "moving on".
- maybelsyrup 6y agoIn a modern web browser, you can do both simultaneously with ctrl-t. Jokes aside, I was curious if anyone else furrowed their brow at university press offices. So here I am.
- exmadscientist 6y agoI do the same thing, but will often check the top comment(s) to make sure I'm not missing something and generally keep my BS detector well trained. In this case the top comment happens to reinforce said detector. Honestly, you rarely have to look as far as the URL; the headline itself's often enough. High on impact or even just zeitgeist + low on specificity + no quantitative statements is a great recipe for "not worth your time".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- computing 6y agonanobodies over antibodies because they're easier to disperse from 5G towers
- sradman 6y agoGreat overview of the biotech behind these COVID-19 nanobodies by Vincent Racaniello [1]: > Human monoclonal antibodies that block infection with SARS-CoV-2 are being used to treat COVID-19 patients, but an alternative, antibodies produced in camelids (alpacas and llamas) might have advantages. Camelid monoclonal antibodies can be more cheaply produced in mass quantities in bacteria, and protein engineering can be quickly used to produce a better therapeutic product. Nanobodies are small and stable enough to be delivered as a nasal spray unlike the current mabs (Regeneron and Eli Lilly) that are delivered intravenously. The paper An ultrapotent synthetic nanobody neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 by stabilizing inactive Spike [2] was discussed in the podcast TWiV 708: Alpaca llama full of nanobodies [3] on Jan 7th. Unfortunately this spray is too late to impact the course of the current pandemic but it gives hope for the future. [1] https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/14/camelids-for-covid/ https://www.virology.ws/2021/01/14/camelids-for-covid/ [2] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6523/1473 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6523/1473 [3] https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-708/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-708/
- nojokes 6y agoThere are other antibody treatments but problem with all is time to market. Medical use approval requires trials. Trials need money.
- ccorcos 6y agoA question for people familiar with the science: How do we build confidence that there aren't any adverse effects from protein? My intuition tells me that this stuff is so small and the world of biochemistry is so complex that who knows what can happen.