5 August — Antibody blend protects monkeys and hamsters from viral symptoms
A mixture of two human antibodies against the new coronavirus shows promise in animal tests for preventing and treating COVID-19.
Neutralizing antibodies are immune molecules that can attach to viruses and disable them. Christos Kyratsous at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, New York, and his colleagues made a cocktail of two neutralizing antibodies that bind SARS-CoV-2. They gave the cocktail to rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), which become mildly ill when infected.
The researchers found that compared to animals that took a placebo, monkeys that received the antibody combination were less likely to develop pneumonia and, if they did, had less lung damage. This was true in monkeys that took the antibodies either before or after receiving a dose of the virus (A. Baum et al. Preprint at bioRxiv http://doi.org/d5r9; 2020).
Unlike macaques, Syrian golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) infected with SARS-CoV-2 become acutely ill. But hamsters dosed with virus lost less weight — or even gained weight — compared with control rodents if given the antibody cocktail before or after receiving a dose of the virus. The findings have not yet been peer reviewed.