Researchers from the Southern University of Chile, who discovered the world’s strongest alpaca antibody for combating Covid-19, in collaboration with Australian and European scientists, found that this antibody is capable of neutralizing the South African, British and Brazilian variants of SARS-CoV-2.
However, the development of the antibody is still in the preclynic phase because of a lack of economic resources. Until now 200 million pesos were approved by the Los Ríos Regional Council to continue the research carried out by the scientific team of the UACh Biotechnology Laboratory for the development of this treatment against covid-19.
The project’s leading researcher, Alejandro Rojas, noted that at one point they did not know whether to continue with the research, “but recent results obtained with the University of Queensland of Australia, with whom we work collaboratively, showed that the antibody is able to neutralize the South African and British variants, in addition to strongly binding to the Spike protein of the Brazilian variant, so we can predict a neutralizing effect on this last variant , which will be evaluated in the coming weeks, so we take up the project more strongly.”
In addition, Chilean researchers have found important properties in terms of stability and expression of the antibody, so that it is produced on a global scale and make available to the population a treatment that blocked the replication of the virus by reducing mortality and contagion, through low-cost therapy.
The team hopes to complete efficacy and toxicity trials to present the background to the Institute of Public Health (PSI), for the implementation of a Phase 1 clinical study that tests the safety of antiviral in patients and then perform it in Phase 2a with patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Regional contribution
“The Regional Government is the one that has embraced local development, in this case it has given us a great backing with a contribution of $200 million to which the Southern University will add another $10 million for the next stage, to bridge the gap between what we have today to be able to jump to try it on animal models. Then it will take two to three million dollars to develop the thousands of doses and start clinical studies in Chile, a contribution that would be requested from the public-private sector,” the academic said.
Despite the excellent results obtained in various studies, Dr. Rojas emphasizes that unfortunately in Chile the government has not invested in developing treatments, as well as vaccines.
“This has made our project a challenge of Quixotesca magnitude. Somehow the Ministry of Science has failed to convey to the government the importance of the Valdiviano find. If we had been supported a year ago, we could already be in clinical phases collaborating on the health response. Antibodies developed in came lipids are positioned globally as a possible therapeutic alternative. Scientists at Gent University in Belgium have developed a neutralizing antibody very similar to Chilean, however, unlike us, they have made an investment of about $50 million for their development between public and private contributions,” Dr Rojas explained.
It should be remembered that in April 2020, UACh scientists were able to identify and produce neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, ingesting a powerful antibody capable of neutralizing coronavirus infection from the alpaca immune system: the Buddha alpaca W25 antibody, which turns out to be one of the best neutralizers in the, highly stable to nebulization and extreme temperature conditions , which makes it an excellent therapeutic option.
“The goal is to bring this synthetic antibody, much like the one given to Donald Trump, to our patients safely and effectively, which will be evaluated in the coming months with support from Dr. Daniel Watterson’s team at the University of Queensland and that of Dr. Kellie Ann Jurado at the University of Pennsylvania at the United States. Taking advantage of these extraordinary new findings is that we allow ourselves to ask President Sebastián Piñera, to finally support this initiative, one of theopportunities we have in Chile to complement vaccination,” Dr Rojas emphasized.
