"Battles are won in the lane but wars in the laboratory."
Study Italy-Usa-Canada. Selected three antibodies capable of neutralizing Sars-Cov-2. Interview with Giuseppe Novelli.
Researchers from the Trac center in Canada, in collaboration with the University of Boston and Rome Tor Vergata, selected three highly neutralizing antibodies against Sars-Cov-2. The first results in vitro and on animals are encouraging, perhaps in a few months we will move on to clinical trials of what could be a highly specific drug for Covid-19. "If it were produced this would be a specific drug against the virus, and for now there are none"
The answer is in the antibodies. Antibodies are the specific molecules that our immune system produces to fight a pathogen in the course of the disease, they are the proteins that, in the long run, even after healing, protect against a second infection and are the same that vaccines do produce to the immune system for preventive purposes to protect against viruses. During this period we have heard so much about antibodies, just yesterday Aifa authorized a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the administration of the plasma containing the antibodies of those who have recovered from the infection to patients with Covid-19. Plasmapheresis is nothing new, it is essentially a transfusion, and it is an approach adopted for decades.
The most modern technologies even allow to produce immunoglobulins in a synthetic way and to select in a highly specific way the most effective ones against a pathogen. And that's what researchers from the University of Toronto did in Sachdev Sidhu's lab.
The research is being conducted in collaboration with the University of Boston in the United States and with the University of Rome Tor Vergata and soon Italy, India and Canada would like to move on to clinical trials. We talked about it with Giuseppe Novelli, geneticist of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and of the University of Nevada (USA).
Professor Novelli, How does your approach work and how many monoclonal antibodies have you selected against the virus?
The selection was made using one of the largest antibody libraries in the world, that of the Trac center (Toronto Recombinant Antibody Center). First we draw an antibody that recognizes the specific way the epitope, an antigenic part of the pathogen, in our case a little variable fragment (which changes less) of the Sars-Cov-2 Spike protein, which allows the entry of the virus into the cell. Then we observe which of the antibodies in the library binds the epitope more efficiently. In this way, we have identified a dozen antibodies, three of which have a very high neutralizing activity. The first in vitro tests (on cells) demonstrate the effectiveness of the three antibodies in preventing the virus from entering the cells, animal tests are underway to verify the toxicity of the molecules.
When should clinical trials begin?
We would like the first patient trials to start in Italy, Canada and India. We are currently preparing the necessary files to be submitted to regulatory agencies and asking for institutional sponsorships. We are universities, not pharmaceutical companies, and transforming a molecule into a drug is not an immediate process. Of course, this situation and new technologies have significantly reduced research time, just think of the vaccines that are generally produced in very long times, even ten years, and now there is the prospect of having one in two years.
What would be the advantages of using these antibodies?
If it were produced this would be a specific drug against the virus, and for now there are none. At the moment we use so-called "repositioned" drugs, developed for other pathologies that we know could be effective against Sars-Cov-2 thanks to studies of genetics and molecular biology.
This approach is also very interesting, because if the virus were to mutate, and the viruses mutated, it would be easy to "adjust the pull", and select more specific antibodies for the modified protein. It could be done in a few weeks.
Could it be an alternative approach to plasmapheresis?
Plasmapheresis is a similar, though less specific, process. All antibodies, neutralizing or not, are supplied to the patient through the plasma of the healed. It has been a known technique for 100 years already used with some success against rabies, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis, measles, flu, Ebola and other pathogens. Plasmapheresis could provide short and medium term humoral immunity pending specific medications and vaccines. Ours could be an extra tool. At this stage each weapon is useful for fighting the enemy that we still know little about.
Credit: http://www.quotidianosanita.it/m/scienza-e-farmaci/icle.php?article_id=85296
#Genetics_mente #genetics # Sars_cov_2 # COVID19 #lunionefalaforza
Study Italy-Usa-Canada. Selected three antibodies capable of neutralizing Sars-Cov-2. Interview with Giuseppe Novelli.
Researchers from the Trac center in Canada, in collaboration with the University of Boston and Rome Tor Vergata, selected three highly neutralizing antibodies against Sars-Cov-2. The first results in vitro and on animals are encouraging, perhaps in a few months we will move on to clinical trials of what could be a highly specific drug for Covid-19. "If it were produced this would be a specific drug against the virus, and for now there are none"
The answer is in the antibodies. Antibodies are the specific molecules that our immune system produces to fight a pathogen in the course of the disease, they are the proteins that, in the long run, even after healing, protect against a second infection and are the same that vaccines do produce to the immune system for preventive purposes to protect against viruses. During this period we have heard so much about antibodies, just yesterday Aifa authorized a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the administration of the plasma containing the antibodies of those who have recovered from the infection to patients with Covid-19. Plasmapheresis is nothing new, it is essentially a transfusion, and it is an approach adopted for decades.
The most modern technologies even allow to produce immunoglobulins in a synthetic way and to select in a highly specific way the most effective ones against a pathogen. And that's what researchers from the University of Toronto did in Sachdev Sidhu's lab.
The research is being conducted in collaboration with the University of Boston in the United States and with the University of Rome Tor Vergata and soon Italy, India and Canada would like to move on to clinical trials. We talked about it with Giuseppe Novelli, geneticist of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and of the University of Nevada (USA).
Professor Novelli, How does your approach work and how many monoclonal antibodies have you selected against the virus?
The selection was made using one of the largest antibody libraries in the world, that of the Trac center (Toronto Recombinant Antibody Center). First we draw an antibody that recognizes the specific way the epitope, an antigenic part of the pathogen, in our case a little variable fragment (which changes less) of the Sars-Cov-2 Spike protein, which allows the entry of the virus into the cell. Then we observe which of the antibodies in the library binds the epitope more efficiently. In this way, we have identified a dozen antibodies, three of which have a very high neutralizing activity. The first in vitro tests (on cells) demonstrate the effectiveness of the three antibodies in preventing the virus from entering the cells, animal tests are underway to verify the toxicity of the molecules.
When should clinical trials begin?
We would like the first patient trials to start in Italy, Canada and India. We are currently preparing the necessary files to be submitted to regulatory agencies and asking for institutional sponsorships. We are universities, not pharmaceutical companies, and transforming a molecule into a drug is not an immediate process. Of course, this situation and new technologies have significantly reduced research time, just think of the vaccines that are generally produced in very long times, even ten years, and now there is the prospect of having one in two years.
What would be the advantages of using these antibodies?
If it were produced this would be a specific drug against the virus, and for now there are none. At the moment we use so-called "repositioned" drugs, developed for other pathologies that we know could be effective against Sars-Cov-2 thanks to studies of genetics and molecular biology.
This approach is also very interesting, because if the virus were to mutate, and the viruses mutated, it would be easy to "adjust the pull", and select more specific antibodies for the modified protein. It could be done in a few weeks.
Could it be an alternative approach to plasmapheresis?
Plasmapheresis is a similar, though less specific, process. All antibodies, neutralizing or not, are supplied to the patient through the plasma of the healed. It has been a known technique for 100 years already used with some success against rabies, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis, measles, flu, Ebola and other pathogens. Plasmapheresis could provide short and medium term humoral immunity pending specific medications and vaccines. Ours could be an extra tool. At this stage each weapon is useful for fighting the enemy that we still know little about.
Credit: http://www.quotidianosanita.it/m/scienza-e-farmaci/icle.php?article_id=85296
#Genetics_mente #genetics # Sars_cov_2 # COVID19 #lunionefalaforza
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