Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Horseshoe crabs may be the answer to a safe coronavirus vaccine next year. Here's why.
For 450 million years, horseshoe crabs have scuttled along the ocean floor, coming ashore to lay eggs.
You need pretty strong defenses to survive mass extinctions and the oversized predators that evolved before man came on the scene. While its helmeted body certainly protected it, the horseshoe crab, living in a bacterial soup, had another defense — blood that quickly clotted to stop infection from cuts and loss of limbs.
Just as it is for this primordial animal, bacteria is all around us.
“It’s not dangerous until it crosses the blood wall,” said Brett Hoffmeister, limulous amebocyte lysate (LAL) production manager for Associates of Cape Cod in East Falmouth. “If it gets into the blood or spinal fluid, you have a problem.”
Because of its quick and detectable response to bacteria, horseshoe crab blood is used in testing anything that can be surgically implanted, injected or swallowed as medication. That includes hip replacements, heart stents, pharmaceuticals, intravenous solutions and vaccines such as the annual flu vaccine, and the coronavirus vaccines now in development with potentially worldwide distribution.
While other tests exist like synthetic LAL and a human blood test, LAL bacterial endotoxin testing is the gold standard, Hoffmeister said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/06/15/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-tested-horseshoe-crab-blood/3190180001/
You need pretty strong defenses to survive mass extinctions and the oversized predators that evolved before man came on the scene. While its helmeted body certainly protected it, the horseshoe crab, living in a bacterial soup, had another defense — blood that quickly clotted to stop infection from cuts and loss of limbs.
Just as it is for this primordial animal, bacteria is all around us.
“It’s not dangerous until it crosses the blood wall,” said Brett Hoffmeister, limulous amebocyte lysate (LAL) production manager for Associates of Cape Cod in East Falmouth. “If it gets into the blood or spinal fluid, you have a problem.”
Because of its quick and detectable response to bacteria, horseshoe crab blood is used in testing anything that can be surgically implanted, injected or swallowed as medication. That includes hip replacements, heart stents, pharmaceuticals, intravenous solutions and vaccines such as the annual flu vaccine, and the coronavirus vaccines now in development with potentially worldwide distribution.
While other tests exist like synthetic LAL and a human blood test, LAL bacterial endotoxin testing is the gold standard, Hoffmeister said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/06/15/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-tested-horseshoe-crab-blood/3190180001/
Very interesting, hope this provides another piece in the puzzle that we need to get rid of this thing.