Coronavirus, amazing llamas, and antibodies. And more recommended books

Drawings by Maria Gonzalez-Forero MD

After a few days of rest, work begins again. Great! I hope to be more consistent with the blog and complete a post at least once a week. I also want to finish the R programming course that I have pending. My daughters start school next week with the number of new cases of coronavirus growing day by day. Let’s hope that the protective measures at school are effective. An excellent way to remember this is through the 3M mnemonic: Mask, meters (safety distance), and hands (frequent handwashing). 

In this text of the blog, I want to continue with the antibodies. Several articles have appeared highlighting the importance of some natural forms of abs with therapeutic potential. We saw that an antibody molecule has two light chains and two heavy chains organized in a variable region and a constant region in the previous entry. A particular case corresponds to camels and llamas that do not produce conventional antibodies. They generate nanobodies. Nano-what?

Nanobodies are composed only of heavy chains, and the antigen-binding site does not have a portion of light chains. Some exciting features include their smaller size and also excellent stability against temperature changes. Also, they can bind with greater affinity to their specific ligand. Several advantages. The team that discovered the nanobodies in Belgium later formed a company with various cancer therapies in development. It is possible to build nanobodies with binding sites to different molecules such as PD-1 and LAG-3 using molecular engineering tricks.  Even in this pandemic, researchers in Boston and Amsterdam have produced nano-abs that recognize and block protein S interaction with human cells.  The stability of these compounds is remarkable- it is even possible to nebulize them! It looks like science fiction.

Two strategies will help us to achieve a normal life. Not a “new normal.” The first is to have effective treatments that attack the virus. Powerful anti-virals. Several in development. One approved with marginal efficacy. The second option is to have a safe and effective vaccine that activates at the same time the humoral system (production of antibodies) and cellular system (T lymphocytes that destroy cells infected by the coronavirus). More than 30 vaccine projects are in clinical trials—data expected by (maybe) the end of the year. An intermediate solution is antibodies that block the entry of the virus into the cells. Multiple initiatives of this type are also in clinical trials—science at the service of humanity.

To finish another recommended book. “La Piel” by Sergio del Molino. It deals with psoriasis from the author’s perspective. It also describes how this autoimmune disease affected historical figures such as Stalin, Nabokov, and Cyndi Lauper. Fascinating! The treatment for this disease is a human monoclonal antibody!  See you next time!