-Binayak Das,Team bioXone
A team of scientists has successfully isolated what they believe to be, as being the smallest biological molecule found till date, it being approximately one-tenth the size of an average antibody molecule. They have designed a therapeutic and pre-emptive drug called- Ab8 using it, which they propose will be able to not just target SARS-CoV-2, but even defeat it, as mentioned in a study published in Cell.
Our star of the show is the variable heavy chain domain (VH) of an immunoglobulin that is found in our blood, and its extraction could be compared to that of finding a needle in a haystack composed of more than one-hundred billion potential contenders, using the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2.
For making the drug much smaller than the average bulky antibody, the tiny VH domain was directly fused onto the tail portion of the immunoglobulin, so that it retains the characteristics of an antibody, even with its diminished size.
Laboratory tests conducted to validate the drug’s effectiveness against the onset of COVID-19 infections in mice and hamsters have yielded positive results, by blocking the virus and preventing infection.
One of the stipulated merits of Ab8 as stated by them, claims that the drug does not target or bind to any type of human cells, thus leaving no room for any potentially hazardous side-effects in people.
One of the researchers from the study, John Mellors, mentioned in his statement that the drug would not only prove to be fruitful in helping cure those that are already affected but even could prevent infections caused by SARS-CoV-2.
They further commented that although treatment with convalescent plasma could help recover some of the affected patients, the availability of such plasma would never suffice for the treatment of a huge number of affected individuals. Also, it has not yet been proven to work in real-life scenarios Hence, they further plan on isolating genes of such antibodies that will successfully inhibit the virus, and then go for mass production of the same.
Source: Schools of Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, https://www.upmc.com/media/news/091420-mellors-dimitrov-covid-ab8
Intestine chip---remedy for “leaky” gut lining?
– Shrestha Dutta, Amity University Kolkata As per a new analysis, carried out at the Quadram Institute, an exceptionally advanced “gut-on-chip” innovation demonstrated that the fermentation results of Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) made the gut lining less “faulty.” A flawed intestinal barrier has been connected to gut conditions, for example, Coeliac disease, Crohn’s disease, and […]