Breakthrough antibody kills all known variants of SARS-CoV-2

[BootinUp]

(The linked article has a lot of technical information)

Breakthrough antibody kills all known variants of SARS-CoV-2
[May 12, 2023: Staff Writer, The Brighter Side of News]


Scientists have been searching for an antibody that would be broadly neutralizing — able to fight off any viral variant that might emerge. (CREDIT: Creative Commons)


As the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic continues, emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been developing methods to circumvent the antibodies produced by our immune systems in reaction to vaccination or previous infections. This has led to cases of breakthrough infections, and the diminishing efficacy of antibody treatments over time.

Researchers have been on a quest to identify a universally neutralizing antibody capable of combating any potential viral variant that could surface. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital have made a significant breakthrough with the development of a new antibody. This antibody, during laboratory examinations, effectively neutralized all presently recognized variants of SARS-CoV-2, which includes all known variants of Omicron.

Frederick Alt, the Charles A. Janeway Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children's, Professor of Genetics at HMS, and a senior investigator of the study, expressed optimism, stating, "We hope this antibody will prove to be as effective in patients as it has been in preclinical evaluations thus far."

Continued at https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/breakthrough-antibody-kills-all-known-variants-of-sars-cov-2

[FalloutShelter]

1. WOOT!

Yay science!

[dweller]

2. They are going to be rich

IF it works … hopefully they will take the Jonas Salk approach and make it available for humanity and not profit .

Imagine Covid eradicated forever 🤔



✌🏻

[FoxNewsSucks]

3. "available for humanity and not profit"

If republicons are in charge, that will never happen.

All the disease we've eradicated, and I'll never understand why they held the door open for this one.

[McKim]

24. It creates fear and chaos!

They held the door open because COVID creates a generalized fear and chaos, and another niche for the Culture Wars. It also feeds on the anti intellectualism in this country. A frightened populace tends to vote more conservatively. And in chaos there is profit to be made more easily. Also in chaos there is less confidence in government solving our problems. So it fed their anti government meme as well. A win, win, win for them and a lose, lose, lose for the rest of us.
They were CREATING THEIR OWN REALITY!!!! And they used that reality to their great benefit. Think $$$$$ loads of government money being given to private hands with no oversight.

[NullTuples]

30. Exactly. Few enough were dying that the GOP could spin fear to their advantage and plunder at will.

The Spanish Flu had a crude mortality rate (ie percent of the world population that died) of 2.7%. COVID up to now has been one ninth of that, at 0.3%. While that represents millions of needless deaths and tragically ruined lives, it was still small enough that Republicans (and conservatives elsewhere) could use it for manipulation. Too many people dying and Republican voters / Fox News viewers would eventually catch on that for instance, everyone in church (ie, members of their local in-group) was dying. But at 0.3% crude mortality rate, only a large handful died; enough to be dismissed through cognitive dissonance &/or manipulation via media and authority. God moves in mysterious ways, to continue and close that one narrow example.

They knew what they had, and took full advantage of it. Not just to gain control over half the country but also to enable massive amounts of grift not only for themselves, but also for their favorite large scale investors, oligarchs, and so on.

[MutantAndProud]

17. We have time for tests and deployment before they can try anything again

The admin can and should easily do a special order nationalizing production and distribution to prevent future outbreaks and devastating emergency states. Even if the companies don’t pad their wallets or bonuses it will provide jobs and a huge boost to morale. Also bodes well for other coronaviruses like the cold and HIV etc.

No cure should cost the inflicted.

Let’s remember what it is: in this case it’s liquid with injectable reprogrammed carbon chains.

The only non-imaginary costs to civilization is supply chain maintenance ensuring materials/manufacturing/storage+delivery mechanism/distribution, plus the labor of the people working the jobs on that chain

[stopdiggin]

4. science ... it works!

[orleans]

5. k&r nt

[Bluethroughu]

6. Thank you Science researchers!

[crickets]

7. Fingers crossed! This is wonderful news. nt

[ShazzieB]

8. Wonderful!

I guess it will be a while before we find out if this is the breakthrough it sounds like and even longer before it becomes widely available. But what a ray of hope!

[Scrivener7]

9. Holy guacamole! Science is the bomb!

[xocetaceans]

10. Here are the relevant articles from the middle of last year...

Powerful new antibody neutralizes all known coronavirus variants

Posted on August 12, 2022 by Nancy Fliesler | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: coronavirus, immunology, public health, vaccines


As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, newer variants of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus have been evolving ways to evade the antibodies we make in response to vaccines or prior infections. As a result, we’ve seen breakthrough cases, antibody treatments that once worked have also become less effective over time. Scientists have been searching for an antibody that would be broadly neutralizing — able to fight off any virus variant that might emerge.

An antibody developed by researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital now seems to fit the bill. In lab tests, it neutralized all currently known SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, including all Omicron variants.

“We hope this antibody will prove to be as effective in patients as it has been in pre-clinical evaluations thus far,” says Dr. Frederick Alt of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s, a senior investigator on the study. “If it does, it might provide a new therapeutic and also contribute to new vaccine strategies.”

Led by Dr. Alt and Dr. Sai Luo at Boston Children’s, the team first modified a mouse model the Alt lab created to search for broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV, another virus that frequently mutates. These mice essentially have built-in human immune systems. The modified model mimics — and refines — the trial-and-error process our own immune systems use to create increasingly effective antibodies when we encounter an invader.

...

https://answers.childrenshospital.org/covid-19-neutralizing-antibody/

An antibody from single human VH-rearranging mouse neutralizes all SARS-CoV-2 variants through BA.5 by inhibiting membrane fusion

Science Immunology | 11 Aug 2022 | Vol 7, Issue 76 | DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.add5446

Sai Luo ... and Frederick W. Alt


Abstract


SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants have generated a worldwide health crisis due to resistance to most approved SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies and evasion of vaccination-induced antibodies. To manage Omicron subvariants and prepare for new ones, additional means of isolating broad and potent humanized SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies are desirable. Here, we describe a mouse model in which the primary B cell receptor (BCR) repertoire is generated solely through V(D)J recombination of a human VH1-2 heavy chain (HC) and, substantially, a human Vκ1-33 light chain (LC). Thus, primary humanized BCR repertoire diversity in these mice derives from immensely diverse HC and LC antigen-contact CDR3 sequences generated by nontemplated junctional modifications during V(D)J recombination. Immunizing this mouse model with SARS-CoV-2 (Wuhan-Hu-1) spike protein immunogens elicited several VH1-2/Vκ1-33–based neutralizing antibodies that bound RBD in a different mode from each other and from those of many prior patient–derived VH1-2–based neutralizing antibodies. Of these, SP1-77 potently and broadly neutralized all SARS-CoV-2 variants through BA.5. Cryo-EM studies revealed that SP1-77 bound RBD away from the receptor-binding motif via a CDR3-dominated recognition mode. Lattice light-sheet microscopy–based studies showed that SP1-77 did not block ACE2-mediated viral attachment or endocytosis but rather blocked viral-host membrane fusion. The broad and potent SP1-77 neutralization activity and nontraditional mechanism of action suggest that it might have therapeutic potential. Likewise, the SP1-77 binding epitope may inform vaccine strategies. Last, the type of humanized mouse models that we have described may contribute to identifying therapeutic antibodies against future SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens.


...

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.add5446

[orthoclad]

22. Thanks!

[xocetaceans]

31. You're welcome. n/t

[WestMichRad]

11. Encouraging news!

Let’s hope it is safe as well as effective.

[wnylib]

12. Great news! I look forward to the possible vaccines and treatments

from this new discovery.

[niyad]

13. Very encouraging news.

[NBachers]

14. Smart people, education, science, medicine, and True scientific research.

[Fla Dem]

15. Wonderful news! Many thanks to those involved.

[forgotmylogin]

16. I'm curious if this is a vaccine?

Or an "antibody" they give you after Covid is present to kill it.

[StarryNite]

18. That's what I would like to know too.

[herding cats]

20. It's not reached human studies in any capacity, yet.

This is extremely preliminary and there's zero evidence it is anything beyond a hope in human studies so far. Still, it's interesting. Just don't expect much until much later in the studies. This is purely a preliminary study.

It may pan out and be a thing, or it may be another, "almost" moment. Both bring us closer to a better management.

[getagrip_already]

25. Vaccines create antibodies.....

So directly applying antibodies shouldn't be different.

The question is does the presence of antibodies cause the body to make more of those antibodies without the viral stimulus.

[Farmer-Rick]

28. The article said it stimulates the mouse's immune system to

Create the antibody.

"Initially, the scientists integrated two human gene segments into the mice. This action stimulated the rodents' immune cells to rapidly synthesize a broad array of antibodies, akin to the ones our bodies could potentially create.

Subsequently, the group exposed the mice to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the primary protein that our antibodies and existing vaccines aim at, derived from the initial Wuhan-Hu-1 coronavirus variant.

As a reaction, the mice generated nine distinct groups of antibodies that attached themselves to the spike protein."

One of those antibodies bines to a part of the virus not known to mutate. So, I suspect they will have to get our bodies to produce that antibody.

"Should these discoveries be successfully duplicated in humans, these antibodies might pave the way for improved COVID-19 vaccines and therapies."

[herding cats]

19. Interesting. Maybe this might hold true in human studies.

If so, it may end up being a true breakthrough down the road.

[orthoclad]

21. Don't get TOO excited

The novel antibody, SP1-77, binds to the covid spike protein at a site which has SO FAR not mutated in any variant:
“SP1-77 binds the spike protein at a site that so far has not been mutated in any variant, and it neutralizes these variants by a novel mechanism,”
The article doesn't describe the novel mechanism.

The first thing that occurs to me is that the targeted site on the spike protein has not yet mutated because it has not yet received selection pressure.

Evolution proceeds by selection pressure. If there is no pressure to mutate and no advantage to mutating, then there is no advantage to transmitting a mutation, so there is no change. In other words, there has been no reason so far for that site on the spike protein to mutate and transmit the mutation to succeeding generations. Once that site on the spike protein is targeted by SP1-77, it will receive selection pressure and there will be an advantage for mutations of the site. Then we'll have a variant resistant to SP1-77.

That "novel mechanism" might demolish this argument, but the article doesn't describe it.It does say that this antibody interferes with the ability of covid to fuse the virus membrane with the cell membrane, which I think is different from previous antibodies.

This antibody could, though, give broad protection against all existing strains, so that's good.

edit: I somehow missed the references given by xocetacean in post #10 (sorry, and thanks!). The science.org link gives overwhelming detail, along with really beautiful color 3D visualizations of the proteins and their interactions.

[getagrip_already]

26. And of course the idiots still won't take it.....

Until they are on deaths doorstep. Then they will expect to be first in line, and refuse to acknowledge it saved their lives afterwards.

[GoneOffShore]

29. If there was a vaccine for stupidity, they wouldn't take it.

[pandr32]

27. I hope the clinical trials will be a success.

What a relief it would be to get vaccinated with this.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

32. We need science to find an antibody to resist variants of stupidity and gullibleness.

PLEASE!!!

[Rocknation]

33. Very good (and very, VERY inevitable) news

Last edited Wed Nov 15, 2023, 06:44 PM - Edit history (24)

especially since America's 70% fully vaccinated Covid rate brings herd immunity within our sights.

Epidemiology 101: Viruses survive by mutating; viruses fade into oblivion when they can no longer out-mutate either their naturally or medically made antibodies.

Thanks to epidemiology, any antibody can now eventually be medically made -- which is why polio, anthrax, smallpox, measles, more recently HIV, and most recently Ebola are pretty much the stuff that distant memories are made of.

Welcome to the beginning of the end, Covid.


Rocknation