49 About the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator
The Therapeutics Accelerator is an initiative launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,Wellcome, and Mastercard with support from public and philanthropic donors to speed up the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by identifying, assessing, developing, and scaling up treatments. Its partners are committed to equitable access, including making products available and affordable in low-resource settings.
About Diamond Light Source
(Molecular) view of a key component of the SARS-CoV-2 virus called MPro (Green/Grey) with drug site targets identifi ed (In yellow). ©Diamond Light Source, 2021.
About DNDi
A non-profi t research and development organization, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) works to deliver new treatments for people living with neglected diseases, especially Chagas disease,
sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis), leishmaniasis, fi larial infections, mycetoma, pediatric HIV, and hepatitis C. DN Di is also coordinating a clinical trial to fi nd treatments for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 cases in Africa.
Since its creation in 2003 by Médecins Sans Frontières, DNDi has provided 9 new treatments, including new drug combinations for visceral leishmaniasis, two fi xed-dose antimalarial drugs, and the fi rst chemical entity it developed, fexinidazole, approved in 2018 for the treatment of both stages of sleeping sickness.
About Wellcome
Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, global heating and infectious diseases.
Diamond Light Source provides industrial and academic user communities with access to state-of- the-art analytical tools to enable world-changing science. Shaped like a huge ring, it works like a giant microscope, accelerating electrons to near light speeds, to produce a light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun, which is then directed off into 33 laboratories known as ‘beamlines.’ Since operations started, more than 14,000 researchers from both academia and industry have used Diamond to conduct experiments, with the support of approximately 760 world-class staff. More than 10,000 scientifi c articles have been published by our users and scientists.
Funded by the UK Government through the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and by the Wellcome Trust, Diamond is one of the most advanced scientifi c facilities in the world, and its pioneering capabilities are helping to keep the UK at the forefront of scientifi c research.
About PostEra
PostEra offers medicinal chemistry powered by machine learning. Our technology is built upon pioneering research done at the University of Cambridge. The technology addresses some of the key challenges in drug discovery R&D by integrating molecular design with chemical synthesis. PostEra partners with drug hunters to co-develop cures for patients while also offering some of its synthesis technology via its Manifold web platform. PostEra launched and now helps lead the world’s largest open-science drug discovery effort: COVID Moonshot.
About the University of Oxford and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
Oxford University is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford (OxBRC) is based at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and run in partnership with the University of Oxford, and was one of fi ve centres funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in 2007. The OxBRC is a partnership that brings together the research expertise of the University of Oxford and the clinical skills of staff of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with the aim of supporting translational research and innovation to improve healthcare for patients.
Read, Share and Comment on this Article, visit:
www.labmate-online.com/articles Could Llama Antibodies Provide a Global Resource for
Covid-19 treatment? “These are among the most effective SARS-CoV-2 neutralising agents we have ever tested at PHE. We believe the unique structure and strength of the nanobodies contribute to their signifi cant potential for both the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 and look forward to working collaboratively to progress this work into clinical studies.” Miles Carroll
Research led by scientists at the Rosalind Franklin Institute is leading to the possible development of a nasal spray to protect against Covid-19 using a type of tiny antibody generated by llamas and camels that binds tightly to the virus.
They found that short chains of the molecules, which can be produced in large quantities in the laboratory, could offer an alternative to the use of human antibodies taken from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 and which need to be injected into the recipient.
“Nanobodies have a number of advantages over human antibodies,” said Professor Ray Owens, head of protein production at the Rosalind Franklin Institute and lead author of the research. “They are cheaper to produce and can be delivered directly to the airways through a nebuliser
Jim Naismith. Credit Roaslind Franklin Institute
or nasal spray, so can be self-administered at home rather than needing an injection. This could have benefi ts in terms of ease of use by patients but it also gets the treatment directly to the site of infection in the respiratory tract.”
Binding ability increased Fifi (Credit: University of Reading)
After researchers at the University of Reading raised antibodies in a llama called Fifi, a small blood sample was collected from which they were able to purify four nanobodies
WWW.LABMATE-ONLINE.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
