Aside from the Keystone Kops dog-and-pony show that President Quid-Pro-Quo is offering as a "response" to the CoVID-19 pandemic, real researchers are getting real results:
This is prelimninary, but it builds on a model that's been successful in the past -- but, as the saying goes, the devil's in the details. If it works inside a human body, it may be the breakthrough we've been hoping for.
Read the whole thing.
Via Joe.My.God.
(Footnote: For those of you who are not science nerds, a virus is, in basic terms, a little packet of either DNA or RNA enclosed in a protein coat; some also have a fatty envelope over that. Those spikes/knobs you see in pictures of the coronavirus are proteins that it uses to penetrate the cell membrane of a host cell. Like any other organism, it wants to reproduce, but since it's lacking most of the metabolic processes that make that possible, it needs a host cell to provide those. Unfortunately, this relationship doesn't do the host cell any good.)
Scientists have identified an antibody in a lab that they say can prevent the novel coronavirus from infecting cells. The team hopes the antibody could be used to create treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. . . .
The team, whose research was published in the journal Nature Communications, have been exploring whether what are known as monoclonal antibodies could help patients with COVID-19. Currently there is no vaccine or specific treatment for the disease. Monoclonal antibodies are a type of protein created in a lab which can bind to a specific substance in the body. These types of antibodies mimic how the immune system responds to a threat, and are used to treat some forms of cancer.
An antibody named 47D11 was found to bind to the spike protein which the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, uses to enter the body, and block it in a way that neutralizes the pathogen.
This is prelimninary, but it builds on a model that's been successful in the past -- but, as the saying goes, the devil's in the details. If it works inside a human body, it may be the breakthrough we've been hoping for.
Read the whole thing.
Via Joe.My.God.
(Footnote: For those of you who are not science nerds, a virus is, in basic terms, a little packet of either DNA or RNA enclosed in a protein coat; some also have a fatty envelope over that. Those spikes/knobs you see in pictures of the coronavirus are proteins that it uses to penetrate the cell membrane of a host cell. Like any other organism, it wants to reproduce, but since it's lacking most of the metabolic processes that make that possible, it needs a host cell to provide those. Unfortunately, this relationship doesn't do the host cell any good.)
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