Researchers are harnessing antibodies taken from alpacas as part of a new treatment for pandemic flu, in a £33 million (about $42,5 million) project led by AstraZeneca, according to The Telegraph newspaper.
If this experiment proves successful, it could usher in a new era of low-cost antibody treatments that offer protection against a variety of serious infectious diseases, such as MERS, Ebola, and others.
In recent years, monoclonal antibodies have been widely used to target and neutralize certain viruses or cancers, but their effectiveness remains limited and their cost very high.
The new project aims to circumvent this problem by using VHH antibodies, also known as “nano-antibodies,” which are known for their effectiveness, precision and stability.
These antibodies are also rarer because they come from a limited number of animal species, such as camels, llamas, and some species of sharks.
In this AstraZeneca-led study, scientists will immunize alpacas with four different strains of the flu virus, then extract the antibodies produced by the animals to develop potential preventative drugs for humans.
This would be the first time that VHH antibodies from alpacas have been used to develop treatments for dangerous viruses.
If the results are positive, these VHH antibodies could be less expensive to produce and more effective than traditional monoclonal antibodies.
Due to their potency, they can be used at lower concentrations. Furthermore, their high stability would allow them to be stored without strict refrigeration, which would facilitate their use in resource-limited environments.
This stability also makes alpaca antibodies promising as antitoxins against snake venoms.
But one of their major advantages lies in their small size: much smaller than classic monoclonal antibodies, VHH antibodies can reach areas of the virus inaccessible to traditional antibodies.
The researchers hope to overcome a major challenge: viral escape, a mechanism by which viruses evade treatment.
