Alpacas are gentle and widely distributed in the highlands of Peru and Chile in South America. In China, alpacas are widely known because of the spoof of netizens. As early as 2009, alpaca was rated as one of the top ten beasts by netizens. With the rapid development of the Internet, the nickname of alpaca has gradually become widely known and has become the lingua franca of the Internet.
According to the Sunday Times, researchers from Frams Biotechnology Institute in Belgium and the University of Texas at Austin found that antibodies in alpaca's blood can help people fight viruses, which makes the study of specific drugs more likely to cross species than existing drugs.
It is reported that the research team isolated two kinds of antibodies from alpacas and found that they can react with the protein used when the virus invades human cells, thus preventing the virus from invading cells. Moreover, the related antibodies are smaller than those produced by humans, and it is easier to penetrate tissues and attack viruses.
Especially according to previous studies, alpaca antibodies have certain tolerance to different temperatures, acids and alkalis, and are easy to produce in large quantities. Combined with its tiny characteristics, nanotechnology can target parvovirus more effectively.
In fact, this is not the first time that alpaca antibodies have shown unusual characteristics. The blood antibody of alpaca was used in the study of HIV before, and it was later found to have certain curative effect on acute respiratory infectious disease (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) caused by coronavirus.
As early as the year before last, relevant researchers in the United States published papers, and relying on alpaca antibodies, it will be possible to develop a brand-new influenza vaccine, which is effective for all influenza viruses.
With the increase in the number of infected people in COVID-19 and the outbreak of epidemics in various countries, the research and development of vaccines in COVID-19 has also entered a sprint stage. Three kinds of vaccines have entered clinical trials in China, namely adenovirus vector vaccine and two inactivated vaccines, and three other research directions are under way. Foreign companies or research institutions, such as Madena and the University of Queensland, have corresponding COVID-19 vaccine research and development projects.
With the deepening of related research, I believe there will be more research results. As a beast, alpaca does not contain light chain antibody molecules, which obviously has unique advantages in size and applicability. We look forward to the early emergence of the "wild alpaca" vaccine and the early results of other vaccine research.