In 10 seconds? The news of a new Covid-19 strain, omicron has left many in doubt of the currently available vaccines. However, researchers have identified a new molecule that could potentially be the basis of a universal vaccine against all variants of the novel coronavirus.
What exactly did they discover? In a recently published pre-print (a paper that has not yet gone through a rigorous peer-review), researchers have presented a new antibody (mAb 35B5) that acts on a particular site of the coronavirus spike protein that does not change upon mutation. This antibody was one of the two taken from immune cells (memory B cells) of former COVID-19 patients. In experiments with lab mice, mAB 35B5 reduced the viral load (the amount of virus in the blood) by 100-fold in mice compared to infected but untreated animals.
