Based on them, a monoclonal antibody is created that can save millions
Russia is preparing to start testing the first monoclonal antibody against COVID-19. Russian scientists announced about two found super-powerful antibodies capable of slowing down the development of the disease in two to three days. The work was carried out at the Novosibirsk Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMKB), at the V.I. Engelhardt RAS and the Federal Medical and Biological Agency.
“A dose of antibodies has been selected that reduces the viral load by a hundred thousand times, which is not inferior to the results of using the well-known American drug Regeneron,” said the director of the IMB. RAS Academician Alexander Makarov last week at a meeting with the President of the Russian Federation.
Recall that the aforementioned American drug (the one with which President Trump was cured of the coronavirus in 2020) is a cocktail of two types of antibodies to the coronavirus. It is given intravenously to slow the spread of the virus early in the disease. Monoclonal antibodies have several advantages over donor plasma, in which they are also present. First, by isolating them from the same plasma, it is possible to control their concentration. Secondly, you can protect patients from other infections. And, thirdly, it is possible to produce antibodies in the required amount in special bioreactors, regardless of the presence or absence of donated blood.
Russian scientists have found different antibodies from the American ones, from which they made their monoclonal drug – “antidote”.
Head of the Laboratory of Biochemistry of Viral Infections, Institute of Molecular Biology. Engelhardt Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Ivanov told MK how it happened.
It all started with the fact that even in the first wave of the pandemic, specialists from the Institute of Biological and Biological Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences made a test system for detecting antibodies and, together with the staff of the FMBA hospital, were engaged in screening (examination) of ill patients in order to identify potential plasma donors.
“It was necessary to determine which of them had a lot of antibodies in the blood,” says Ivanov. – Then select the cells that create these antibodies. We found several people who gave very high antibody titers. This indicated that they have many corresponding producer cells, which means that there is a high probability of meeting among their antibodies the most powerful “copies”.
The whole blood of these former patients of the clinic was sent to Novosibirsk to Alexander Taranin’s laboratory of immunogenetics at the IMKB SB RAS. There, the cells isolated from the blood were divided, their clones were grown, and then they began to study the set of antibodies that were produced from them. The first thing we looked at was how well the antibodies prevent infection with a real virus in real cells (this was done with the Gamaleya Center), the second was made by artificial viruses (the so-called lentivirus, a simulated immunodeficiency virus that has on its surface not HIV proteins, but S -protein coronavirus).
As a result, Siberian scientists found several antibodies that very actively resisted the coronavirus, and all of its variants. The researchers decided to combine their two species so that they can stop all strains of coronavirus with 100% reliability.
The effectiveness was tested on Syrian hamsters.
First, six animals were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And then, after 6 hours, a monoclonal drug of direct action against the virus was injected. After checking their condition, after a certain time, scientists found out that none of the laboratory animals showed signs of the development of the disease. But in the control group, where the hamsters were infected, but the protective drug was not administered, the body weight of the animals dropped by 10-15% within two days, and the presence of viral RNA was found in the lungs. It should be noted that the animals did not feel unwell for long – unlike humans, whose disease lasts longer, hamsters tolerate the disease more easily and fully recover by the seventh day.
A monoclonal substance can indeed be compared to an antidote. A person receives something similar in the form of an intramuscular injection after an encephalitis tick bite. Just one injection is enough for the “concentrate” of neutralizing antibodies to block the penetration of coronavirus into cells. It should be introduced as early as possible, scientists say, its action is effective in the very first days of the disease. The antibodies introduced into the body or developed naturally begin to gradually leave the body after two weeks.
The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation has already approved the next stage of work – the creation of the so-called drug dossier and the conduct of preclinical tests in accordance with all the necessary rules and standards. They are supposed to start from the new year.
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