There is no clinical data in the paper, they measured how tightly the nanobody they designed binds to the Spike protein and they did some neutralization assays against SARS-CoV2.
The advantages of the nanobodies compared to full antibodies sound interesting, for sure. But this is still a paper pretty solidly in the basic research area, and quite far from clinical use.
I found an article about this research that puts it into a bit more context:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/11/scientists-create-potent...
> While the lab results look promising, experts in the field advise caution because important work has not been done to test the compound in animals. “The critical thing is animal data. We’ve found things that are very potent in vitro that do nothing in vivo,” said Dimiter Stanchev Dimitrov, a professor of medicine who directs the Center for Antibody Therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh and has created antibody-based therapeutics for numerous viruses including SARS and MERS, two other coronaviruses. He said it can take months to collect the needed data in animals. “Once these are tested in animal models, then I can get excited.”
Sure there's not any clinical data, but they actively admit that and I'm sure that's something they're working on. Furthermore, there have been multiple Nature papers published on SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies and antibody cocktails that use the same experiments (e.g. Vero cells) without testing in animal models or in humans. One step at a time!
I can't really judge whether that approach makes sense, my experience is in the basic research area, not with clinical stuff.
I know Ablynx was working on an inhaled one as a treatment for RSV, but I don't think it made it to the market (yet). This noveldelivery method probably needs lots of scrutiny from regulators before it can enter the market.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31532354/
"McIntyre Powder (MP) is a finely ground aluminum powder that was used between 1943 and 1979 as a prophylaxis for silicosis. Silicosis is a chronic lung disease caused by the inhalation of crystalline silica dust and was prevalent in the Canadian mining industry during this time period."
"Hey why aren't you wearing a mask?"
"No worries I'm using inhalable protection"
rolls eyes
Viruses can enter the body more than just orally and even though we think it's primarily through the respiratory system, we aren't sure yet.
Even having expressed doubt, something is better than nothing. And if it eliminates requiring face masks it would be worth it alone for that.
Effective treatment will be much more likely to hit the market than a vaccine.
Used once a day, AeroNabs could provide powerful, reliable protection against SARS-CoV-2 until a vaccine becomes available.
But maybe that's a signal that these researchers believe much of the vaccine news has been overly optimistic hype. I guess the race is on.
One question I don't think the article addressed: if successful, would this have applications beyond Covid-19? Like against the common cold?
I also don't want to get my hopes up since research like this is bound to be overhyped. I want to see where it goes like a month or two from now.
Are llamas in the UX toolkit as an animal that is both semi-exotic yet familiar enough to elicit positive reactions.
I encountered a bunch on Peru trails and they were pretty ornery (compared to yaks or sheep) and the 30 or so different Quechua locals I talked with said they were pretty bad as pack animals. So they seemed pretty normal to me and not really some cool animal.
"...inspired by nanobodies, antibody-like immune proteins that naturally occur in llamas, camels and related animals."
You did give me a good laugh though.
It's promising early research, but it's not even in laboratory animal trials yet.
PS: again if it worked exactly as advertised, could it be a tool to stifle incubation after a know exposure?
[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/studies-...
"Chinese scientists report evidence of an oral-fecal transmission route for COVID-19 viruses and show that, in hospitalized patients, viral RNA was found in anal swabs and in blood samples."
I.e. you find RNA in anal swabs & blood. It leaves your body that way. Which is a well-known fact, and might be very useful in population-level surveillance. It also means you should put the lid down before flushing, lest you create something lovingly known as a "toiled plume".
It does not mean you get infected via the anus.
These releases coming from University PR departments (this one's from UCSF) aren't really supposed to make it into newspapers for wide consumption. Their target audience is:
1. the people working in the same field—in other Universities, or in industry—who maybe don't have time to read journals, so you've gotta get their attention actively with a "billboard" announcement, rather than putting it in a journal they have to explicitly decide to read;
2. the people who fund the university, who want to see what sorts of neat things their money is being spent on.
Pop-science journalists sometimes glom onto these releases and make them more than they are, "retargeting" them for public consumption. You can certainly object to that. But as originally delivered, these publications are blameless for that.
The level of detail in a press release makes it usually pretty useless to a scientist, it hides the important details behind language intended for non-scientists. The abstract of a paper is much more useful if you need to decide whether it is of interest for you at all.
I enjoyed hearing about this new approach to infection control that is its infancy regardless. I felt a little hope for a creative solution to our current crisis and I didn't have to wade through the literature on camelid antibodies to do it.
New technology has always relied on a certain underlying optimism that you can do something that's new and better against the odds (since most fail).
Would you like this better if there was a disclaimer explaining in vitro/in vivo or just the long road from basic research to wide spread deployment?
There are multiple aspects that are novel here: their size, the trimer (rather than a cocktail), and their stability/delivery. All of these seem worthy of reporting. They say they're about to start clinical trials to see if they could be efficacious; they don't say that they will.
Though I think it would have been better to wait until peer review before making a press release. This is not a paper that has immediate clinical applications, and the peer review might still turn up some problems with the paper.