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 After immunizing Tyson, a 12 year-old alpaca in Germany, with virus
proteins, the team at the Karolinska Institute have isolated tiny
antibodies - known as nanobodies - from his blood that bind to the
same part of the virus as human antibodies and could block the
infection.
They hope this can form the basis of a treatment for COVID 19 or
eventually a vaccine against it, though the work is at an early
stage.
"We know that it is the antibodies that are directed to the same
very, very precise part of the virus that are important and that is
what we have engineered with this antibody from Tyson," Gerald
McInerney, head of the team at Karolinska said.
"In principle, all the evidence would suggest it will work very well
in humans, but it is a very complex system."
Llamas and other members of camel family - as well as sharks - are
known to produce nanobodies, which are far smaller than the
full-size antibodies produced by humans, and therefore potentially
easier for scientists to work with.
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A vaccine may still be some way off.
"We will now move forward to going into in-vivo studies, maybe with mice or
hamsters or other animals that can be used as a model for COVID 19 disease, but
the next step after that we really can't say," McInerney said.
As for Tyson, he has done his job.
"Tyson is 12 years old, I believe, and he may be looking at retirement soon,"
McInerney said. "So he'll live out his life on his farm back in Germany."
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor; Writing by Simon Johnson; Editing by Peter Graff)
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