Dear Friends:
Sometimes you just never know where salvation will come from! It looks like we might have a handle on this COVID-19 thing by "Winter!"
A new study out of Belgium, published this week in the science journal “Cell,” found that llamas might actually hold key antibodies that could help treat COVID-19.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that a group of llamas on a research farm produces a special type of antibody that could be used to neutralize the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The research centred on a four-year-old llama named Winter, who besides being adorable, could also be a medical hero.
Winter currently lives on a Belgian farm alongside 130 other llamas and alpacas.
But when she was nine months old, in a process similar to humans getting shots to immunize them against a virus, she was injected with stabilized spike proteins from the viruses that caused SARS and MERS.
Researchers were able to isolate antibodies in Winter that made her immunized to SARS and MERS. Then, by linking two copies of antibodies that could hinder the SARS virus, they were able to find a new antibody that would bind to and neutralize the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
(Now on top of the celebrity status of 'Fernando Llama' and the 'Dali Llama' we also have 'Winter the Llama.')
The way I see it anyway!
Sometimes you just never know where salvation will come from! It looks like we might have a handle on this COVID-19 thing by "Winter!"
A new study out of Belgium, published this week in the science journal “Cell,” found that llamas might actually hold key antibodies that could help treat COVID-19.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that a group of llamas on a research farm produces a special type of antibody that could be used to neutralize the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The research centred on a four-year-old llama named Winter, who besides being adorable, could also be a medical hero.
Winter currently lives on a Belgian farm alongside 130 other llamas and alpacas.
But when she was nine months old, in a process similar to humans getting shots to immunize them against a virus, she was injected with stabilized spike proteins from the viruses that caused SARS and MERS.
Researchers were able to isolate antibodies in Winter that made her immunized to SARS and MERS. Then, by linking two copies of antibodies that could hinder the SARS virus, they were able to find a new antibody that would bind to and neutralize the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
(Now on top of the celebrity status of 'Fernando Llama' and the 'Dali Llama' we also have 'Winter the Llama.')
The way I see it anyway!
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