Scientists are looking for key antibodies against coronavirus.

May 2, 2020 / / -- In fact, all methods of fighting COVID-19 depend on finding antibodies.
these small protein molecules can attach to the virus and disable it, but they must be tailored to a specific virus.
at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory are racing to find and study the antibodies, which are made by people recovering from viral infections.
find these antibodies and screen for the most effective ones, which may be the basis for creating treatments, vaccines, and testing programs.
say they are shocked by the speed and intensity of the scientific community's response.
with organizations in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and China," said Andrzej Joachimiak, a biologist at the National Laboratory in Argonne, N.Y.
I can tell you that people all over the world are trying to help.
" photo source: Center for Structural Genomics of The University of Chicago," agrees Patrick Wilson, an immunologist at the University of Chicago: "It's amazing that the research community has come together on this issue.
I've never seen anything like it.
the new coronavirus spread in Asia and Europe earlier this year, Wilson contacted collaborators who collected blood from COVID-19 patients.
same time, Joachimiak quickly mobilized to determine the physical shape and structure of the proteins that make up the coronavirus using Agung's advanced photon source, the x-ray microscope.
both gave Wilson's lab an immediate chance to start decoding.
Wilson specializes in B-cells -- white blood cells that contain the main formula for making antibodies.
by working with collaborators across the country, he quickly began isolating B cells that responded to coronavirus from the patient's blood.
once scientists have these B cells, they can copy DNA and use it to create a "factory" to produce antibodies.
next step is to find the most effective antibodies to the virus in these antibodies.
in the fight against the disease, everyone produces many different types of antibodies -- some of which are more useful than others.
Wilson's lab will conduct preliminary experiments on virus fragments to see how powerful different candidate antibodies are.
, Joachimiak's lab at Advanced Photon Source will use x-rays to "action shoot" test antibodies locked in viral proteins.
based on the findings of Joachimiak and Wilson, virology labs can conduct more tests in petri dishes to see which antibodies are most effective against the virus.
if effective antibodies are found, many possibilities will be opened up.
"you can mass produce the most protective antibodies to treat patients directly," Wilson said.
you know which parts of the virus are most vulnerable to antibodies, so you can use this information to guide the search for a vaccine."
, because antibodies are targeted at COVID-19, the tests they use to detect antibodies can also be used to test people's blood immunity to determine whether someone has been infected with the virus and recovered.
these tests, you know the unknown infected people in the community and how they are distributed in the community.
these data are very useful for epidemiologists, who can build predictive models based on that," Wilson said.
" provides a basis for you to consider issues such as whether there will be a second wave, when it will occur, and how bad it will be, based on known modeling of existing immunity.
"Wilson says what makes their work unique is that because they get so much protein from the virus -- thanks to Joachimiak's lab -- they are able to explore parts of the virus that no one else cares about.
most of the world's vaccines are now concentrated on the coronavirus's unique coronary tinge, which is named after the coronavirus.
but there may be other proteins that are a good way to get a vaccine or treatment.
in the short term, these proteins also give Joachimiak's team a chance to screen FDA-approved drugs to see if any of them work against the key enzymes that make up the coronavirus.
Joachimiak said: "Computing experiments using large parallel supercomputers, such as Agung's Theta supercomputer and other supercomputers, can propose the best candidates, and then we will test whether these drugs have the effect of inhibiting the core virus enzymes."
" () Reference: Scientists hunt for antibodies, key in fight against coronavirus.