The title is "Bispecific antibodies targeting the N-terminal and receptor binding domains potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern". Note that although the antibodies were only helpful before infection, "its therapeutic efficacy after infection was limited." Thus, it isn't a treatment. Also, this study was in mice, not humans, so this is something potentially for the future, not something you can use now.
Also of note because of recent political choices, these are humanized mice, meaning they're transgenic. They have a human ACE2 gene instead of the mouse ACE2 gene, which makes the human version of the enzyme that the COVID virus uses to enter cells. This isn't my exact field, so I'm not positive, but I remember hearing that all of the COVID mouse models require transgenic mice.
There's absolutely no problem with research on transgenic mice. Certain groups have been trying to claim that the US president confused "transgenic" and "trans(sexual|gender)" in his speech last week, but that is incorrect. There really was a series of government-funded studies concerning gender in mice [1,2].
[2] Just to be clear: I have no opinion on this research, nor am I suggesting that it is wasteful. I'm just pointing out that the entire meme of "Trump confused transgenic har har har" is factually incorrect, and also deeply ironic.
You're kinda splitting hairs here which lends me to believe you also fail to grasp the reality of the situation. We have no idea if Trump really knows the difference between the words transgenic and transgender, but we know that these studies are mostly--if not completely--focused on aspects other than simply changing the sex of the mice. If I had to guess, the grant proposals probably contained enough woke buzzwords to make them appear to be such.
The way they complain about it though, it seems to me that they think mouse studies are done for the sake of mice. ‘Crazy woke liberals want to make even mice transgender.’ Is the whistle they’re blowing.
dang, would you be able to update the title for this thread? The full title is too long for HN but could be shortened to: “Bispecific antibodies potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern”.
Antibodies are not vaccines. Antibodies bind to an antigen (virus component in this case) to get the immune system to attack and destroy the antigen and whatever it's attached to.
A vaccine causes the patient to develop specific immunity (fast reaction to a specific antigen) by introducing (usually injecting) a large amount of an antigen. That prompts the immune system to react by developing B-cells that produce their own antibodies to the antigen. It turns the body into its own antibody factory to deal with whatever you injected, but that takes time.
Injecting antibodies, as in this study, bypasses the natural (slow) specific immunity generation process. Antibodies are created some other way (in a lab, or in some other animal) and then directly injected. It's done for serious diseases or dangerous toxins or immuno-compromised individuals, when waiting for the patient to develop their own specific immunity is too slow or dangerous.
Critically, a vaccine allows the body to maintain the ability to fight off similar-enough infections for a while, but usually takes weeks or more to reach near full effect, sometimes requiring multiple shots for better effectiveness. If you're trying to treat an infection you think you might already have or will get in the next few days, vaccines only work if the progression of the disease is very slow, as in rabies which takes something like 1-2 months to make it into the CNS.
Injecting antibodies is a one-shot treatment that must be repeated until the virus (or toxin or other bad thing) is gone. It's commonly done for toxins (spider or snake venoms), or sometimes for severe diseases (ebola, tetanus), but sars-cov-2 has so much attention that now they're doing it for that too. In patients who aren't immunocompromised, antibody treatments for less-lethal infections give their immune systems more time to generate their own antibodies without developing severe symptoms.
The similarity in the two approaches is that they both ultimately involve antibodies binding to coronavirus proteins. The difference is in where those antibodies come from, and whether the body can produce more at will (vaccine --[time]--> natural immunity), or whether you have to keep injecting them (antibody treatments).
That's only a rough approximation. The immune system is very complicated. Wikipedia, or a book on molecular biology or immunology, will go into a lot more detail.
So it could be given eg daily prophylactically to health workers, and important functional workers during a breakout pandemic to ensure they can continue to work, with very high likelihood of exposure. If it meant less biohazard cosplay (really? it works but it's such a high burden to get right and its exhausting from what health workers say)
I'd say it's worth exploring on those grounds alone. Anything to keep health and vital service staff functional during the bad times.
Maybe there's a hypothetical where there's somehow rapid availability of specific antibodies, but no opportunity to vaccinate healthcare workers ahead of time, and it somehow makes sense to rely on antibody injections instead of PPE ("biohazard cosplay"). Here are some reasons why it probably doesn't.
Getting treated with antibodies don't mean you're asymptomatic or that you'll feel well. It only means you'll have less severe symptoms. You'd have healthcare workers walking around sick, spreading the very disease they're trying to treat others for. Or taking up a hospital or clinic bed, not treating patients, using up limited healthcare resources — which, for the duration of their illness, is a worse outcome for their patients than if the healthcare workers weren't there at all.
It's expensive. There's no economy of scale for an unusual disease outbreak. That applies to both antibody and vaccine stockpiles.
If the disease is minor (like COVID-19 usually is for otherwise healthy individuals), healthcare workers might be willing to take a chance to avoid the hassle of PPE, but would their employer (such as a hospital, or MSF)? They're the ones who have to pay for antibody treatment if their healthcare employees get sick. They're the ones who have medical ethicists looking out for both the well-being of the frontline healthcare workers and patients.
If the disease has a significant mortality rate, availability of a specific antibody treatment, even if it's stocked and instantly available, wouldn't motivate anyone to go without PPE. Nor would getting vaccinated. They're not guarantees of survival, and preventing healthcare workers from getting sick is more important than treating patients.
Yea I hadn't really thought it through. I went straight to a hallelujah outcome when most things "in mice" don't wash through, and are expensive. Disposable PPE is less expensive and we know it works. Sweaty and tiring, but works.
Not to mention, PPE protects you against diseases which aren't COVID-19 - the common cold, influenza, tuberculosis... health care workers are always going to be safer (and keep their patients safer!) by masking up.
No, this is a treatment. Vaccines are preventative by priming your immune system, this directly targets SARS-CoV-2 itself, so is for people who actively have COVID.
I think it's the thing the powers that be said was inconclusive and/or ineffective (monoclonal antibodies) and in the same realm of conspiracy theorist homeopathic solutions. Just takes awhile for things to work out, it's OK.
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