
Scientists create antibody that defeats coronavirus in lab - miked85
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-04/scientists-create-antibody-that-defeats-coronavirus-in-lab
======
bookofjoe
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16256-y.pdf](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16256-y.pdf)

~~~
fspeech
Is it standard to report antibody concentration in μg/ml? How likely is it to
deliver the reported IC50 to the lung? Also do antibody typically not have
cytotoxic concentration because of their specificity?

~~~
diag
Protein concentration is essentially always presented as mass/volume in every
scientific paper I've ever read.

------
xchip
The problem is to find an antibody that defeats just corona and not other
cells, like nerves and other stuff you need

~~~
a_t48
> The antibody known as 47D11 targets the spike protein that gives the new
> coronavirus a crown-like shape and lets it enter human cells. In the Utrecht
> experiments, it didn’t just defeat the virus responsible for Covid-19 but
> also a cousin equipped with similar spike proteins, which causes Severe
> Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

> Monoclonal antibodies are lab-created proteins that resemble naturally
> occurring versions the body raises to fight off bacteria and viruses. Highly
> potent, they target exactly one site on a virus. In this case, the
> scientists used genetically modified mice to produce different antibodies to
> the spike proteins of coronaviruses. After a subsequent screening process,
> 47D11 emerged as showing neutralizing activity. Researchers then reformatted
> that antibody to create a fully human version, according to the paper.

I don't have any biology background - are you saying this targeting might not
work?

~~~
greglindahl
The reason we carefully test things that work in a petri dish is that some of
them harm people, and many others don't work in people.

~~~
prox
I once saw a good talk that mentioned that -any- drug has a chance to be
adversial. Drugs that work on most people might make another sick. This is
indeed why there is so much testing and careful indexing side effects.

------
dllthomas
Relevant:
[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/27/mo...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/27/monoclonal-
antibodies-for-the-coronavirus)

------
pjdorrell
How much do monoclonal antibody treatments cost, per patient, usually?

For example:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570079/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4570079/)

Also, how much of the high cost is research cost, and how much of that is per-
unit production cost?

~~~
steelframe
My most recent treatment of ocrelizumab was ~$64k, which I have to get twice a
year. It's not much more expensive than a lot of the other disease-modifying
therapies for my condition.

------
LatteLazy
[https://xkcd.com/1217/](https://xkcd.com/1217/)

------
steveeq1
Yes, a vaccine MAY be possible, but the news reports I'm hearing are wildly
optimistic at best. It will also take an enormous amount of energy/willpower
to quarantine until then.

It might be more economically efficient (and convenient) for the strong and
healthy to purposefully self-infect, and build up anti-bodies naturally. Herd
immunity will eventually be built and corona will no longer be a problem.

~~~
KCUOJJQJ
>It might be more economically efficient (and convenient) for the strong and
healthy to purposefully self-infect

If someone told me I should deliberately catch a cold I'd say no. What about
Ebola? I'd say no! A germ that I don't know? I'd say no!

If a police patrol arrived somewhere and someone ran away, that person would
be suspicious. If I'm asked to get any germ I'd suspect that it's very
dangerous, even if it was just a cold.

So telling people to infect themselves deliberately won't work.

~~~
irishcoffee
I’d do it. Everyone is going to catch this. I think I already had it (doesn’t
everyone?) but in the event I didn’t, if I could volunteer to get infected I
would do it.

~~~
svd4anything
I’m assuming because you are sure having it once will give you some immunity?
It’s really unclear if that is true and I respectfully disagree with those who
same it is more likely than not.

~~~
lostapathy
We don't "know" that infection confers any sort of lasting immunity, but
there's zero reason to believe it doesn't give you immunity at least for a few
years.

This is all rooted in the media narrative trying to scare people to stay at
home "you could catch it over and over again". It's not science, and it's
counter productive.

~~~
zbentley
Well, it's not science, but it may be productive. A lot of people will hear
"it's not so bad" and "healthy people should get it and get over it", and go
out and make others sick (including people that could die or be hospitalized).

It's not science, it's crowd control. People don't exercise good judgement
reliably, so that might be counterproductive.

