COVID-19 Blocking Antibody

The investigators at Utrecht University, Erasmus Medical Center, and Harbour BioMed (HBM) today announced that they had known a fully human monoclonal COVID-19 blocking antibody that blocks the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus from harming sensitive cells.

The judgments, published online today in Nature Communications, is an initial step towards producing a fully human antibody to manage or block the respiratory infection COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded across the globe, moving more than 3.3M people worldwide and killing more than 235,000 people so far.

Neutralizing Immunoglobulin

“This study builds on the work our organizations have done in the past on immunoglobulins targeting the SARS-CoV that began in 2002/2003,” answered Berend-Jan Bosch, Associate Professor, Research leader at Utrecht University, and co-lead author of the Nature Communications study.

“Using this combination of SARS-CoV immunoglobulins, we knew an antibody that also neutralizes the contamination of SARS-CoV-2 in cultured cells. Such a neutralizing immunoglobulin has the potential to alter the course of illness in the infected host, post virus move, or keep an uninfected person that is given to the virus.”

Dr. Bosch remarked that the COVID-19 blocking antibody connects to a domain that is conserved in both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, explaining its ability to compensate both viruses. “This cross-neutralizing feature of the antibody is interesting and suggests it may have potential in mitigation of infections produced by future-emerging related coronaviruses.”

COVID-19 Blocking Antibody Growth

“This discovery gives strong support for further study to characterize this antibody and begin growing as potential COVID-19 medications,” stated Frank Grosveld, Ph.D. co-lead author on the study, Academy Professor of Cell Biology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, and Founding Chief Scientific Officer at Harbour BioMed.

“The antibody used in this work is ‘fully human,’ allowing development to proceed more quickly and reducing the potential for immune-related results.” Conventional healing antibodies are first revealed in other species and then must undergo further work to ‘humanize’ them. The antibody was generated using Harbour BioMed H2L2 transgenic mouse technology.

“This is groundbreaking research,” said Dr. Jingsong Wang, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of HBM. “Much more work is needed to assess whether this antibody can preserve or reduce the severity of disease in humans. We need to promote the growth of the antibody.

Critical Heart Diseases

We think our technology can add to writing this most important public health need, and we are trying some other research avenues.”

In some cases, the syndrome looks similar to a rare childhood illness called Kawasaki disease, which can lead to infection of the blood vessels, particularly the coronary veins.

The symptoms of Kawasaki illness often start with a fever and a rash, but when undiagnosed and untreated, the condition can lead to critical heart diseases, such as coronary aneurysms. The state, which usually hurts patients six months to about six years old, is though rare in the United States.

But Dr. Kernie said it was essential to distinguish between this coronavirus-related condition and Kawasaki disease.

Rare Development Of Kawasaki Illness

While some of the symptoms are related, Dr. Kernie stated, including illness, intestinal pain, and sometimes a trained rash, there seem to be variations in how the coronavirus-related disease affects the heart.

While the shock is a rare development of Kawasaki illness, in the recent wave of coronavirus-related cases, he stated, many of the kids are in toxic shock with slight blood pressure and a failure of the blood to adequately circulate oxygen and nutrients to the body’s organs.