Scientists at China’s Peking University may have come up with an alternative way to control the pandemic. That’s because they propose using neutralizing antibodies to defend cells against the SARS-CoV-2 virus attack. This is as opposed to using a vaccine to destroy the virus outright, which could take longer to achieve. Could stopping the coronavirus without a vaccine meet our immediate need?
Neutralizing Antibodies Stopping the Coronavirus Without a Vaccine
A neutralizing antibody defends a benign cell from a pathogen, or an infectious particle according to Wikipedia. However, it achieves this by biologically neutralizing the invader so it is no longer pathogenic or infectious. Hence it differs from a binding antibody which misses the sweet spot, and does not reduce the invader’s ability to infect.
Furthermore the new drug already works well at animal testing level, according Sunney Xie, director of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics. ‘We injected neutralizing antibodies into infected mice with a view to stopping the coronavirus without a vaccine. When we looked five days later,’ he told AFP news hub ‘the viral load had reduced by a factor of 2,500 times’.
This Potential Drug Has a Therapeutic, not an Inoculating Effect
Chinese American biochemist Sunney Xie is a founding father of single-molecule biophysical chemistry, and single-molecule enzymology. He is also Director of Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Genomics at Peking University.
An article in scientific journal “Cell” proposes his new drug as a potential cure for the Covid-19 disease. Moreover, it shortens recovery time and may even deliver short-term immunity from the virus.
Planning for the clinical safety trial is underway. But testing will be in Australia, because China has so few remaining active Covid-19 cases. The drug may be stopping the coronavirus without a vaccine by the North American winter, if all goes according to plan.
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Preview Image: Prof. Xiaoliang Sunney Xie
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