
‘AeroNabs’ Promise Powerful, Inhalable Protection Against Covid-19 - jacquesm
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/08/418241/aeronabs-promise-powerful-inhalable-protection-against-covid-19
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Animats
_Competing Interest Statement_

 _" M. Schoof, B. Faust, R. Saunders, N. Hoppe, P. Walter, and A. Manglik are
inventors on a provisional patent describing anti-Spike nanobodies described
in this manuscript."_

PR for this has reached every outlet from USA Today to sci.electronics.design
on Usenet. However, there seems to be zero commentary on it from serious
medical sites or journals.

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sbierwagen
Derek Lowe has now covered it:
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/13/na...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/13/nanobodies-
against-the-coronavirus-something-new)

Single-domain antibodies have been around for a while:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-
domain_antibody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-domain_antibody)

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dharmab
"Promise" is maybe too strong a word for something that has only been shown to
neutralize the virus in liquid form in in vitro cell culture so far.

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sp332
School press releases are always like this for alumni projects.

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exabrial
Long way to verifying the safety, given the particle size, but that's a fairly
novel mechanism of action from my limited knowledge.

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tonfa
Wonder if it's similar to eg [https://www.molecularpartners.com/molecular-
partners-announc...](https://www.molecularpartners.com/molecular-partners-
announces-agreement-with-swiss-government-securing-rights-to-purchase-doses-
of-first-anti-covid-19-darpin-program/)

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shahar2k
A friend (PhD researcher) introduced me to nanobodies and the science around
them a few years back, it's pretty fascinating and cool to see more and more
practical applications.

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credit_guy
> As the world awaits vaccines to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control,
> UC San Francisco scientists have devised a novel approach to halting the
> spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease.

Not clear at all how this thing can be ready for use before vaccines become
available. This is a long way before Phase 1 clinical trials, while quite a
few vaccines are well into their Phase 3 trials.

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LeoNatan25
Vaccine efficacy is not yet proven. Even if highly effective, vaccines will
take years to circulate the world. Something like this, much easier to
produce, supposedly, can fill that vaccine gap.

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DrAwdeOccarim
This is super cool, but unfortunately a little too late to the game. We will
likely have a vaccine by Feb next year. To scale-up a protein antibody, run
trials, and get approval for such a novel idea--plus you would need the device
to be either CE or approved already because that would take a whole lot longer
if not--will take best case 1 year. Doesn't mean they shouldn't find an
industry partner to go for it, but I doubt anyone would pick it up without
government backstopping and right now the focus is on vaccine and mAb scale-
up.

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sjnu
This sounds like a great way to solve the “vaccines don’t give recurring
income” problem.

