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COVID antibody testing at Los Alamos National Laboratory could fight future variants

Rachel Leeson
/
iSO-FORM LLC

Since March of 2020, we’ve seen COVID-19 continue to mutate into different variants. As of right now Omicron’s subvariant BA.5 remains the dominant strain and the Biden Administration has extended the public health emergency again until October.

However, Los Alamos National Laboratory is experimenting with an unusual tool that could effectively fight against and better detect COVID and its variants.

The researchers are using a library of antibodies that were collected from healthy donors in the late 1990s who were never exposed to the original SARS virus identified in 2003.

Bioscientist Antonietta Lillo said that these antibodies target and tag the “enemy”, SARS-Cov-2 or the virus that causes COVID-19, and they have the potential to prevent the virus from entering human cells which could make faster recovery possible.

"That is the reason why we think that our antibodies could possibly bind and fight even variants of the virus that will appear in the future" Lillo said.

Lillo explained that each antibody could detect different parts of SARS-Cov-2 and create something like an antibody cocktail that would be effective against any SARS-Cov-2 variants.

As of right now, these antibodies cannot be given to patients since they haven’t gone through the necessary testing to secure FDA approval, which usually takes a long time.

Resources:

Research Paper: Healthy humans can be a source of antibodies countering COVID-19

This coverage is made possible by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and KUNM listeners.

Taylor is a reporter with our Poverty and Public Health project. She is a lover of books and a proud dog mom. She's been published in Albuquerque The Magazine several times and enjoys writing about politics and travel.
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