Cow’s antibodies could be the newest weapon against COVID-19

Time for a different type of HERD IMMUNITY!🐄

Last week it was reported that a biopharmaceutical company in the US are using genetically modified cows to produce antibodies that could help us to fight COVID-19. I was intrigued when I saw the headline so had to do some more digging.

As coronavirus marches around the globe, a sleepy town on the rugged Maine coast has become an unlikely nucleus in researchers’ efforts to combat the disease, known as COVID-19. The Jackson Laboratory, a is rushing to produce stocks of a transgenic animal that scientists hope will help them to understand the virus.

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So what makes cows so special?

Cows make good antibody factories, and not just because they have more blood than smaller animals engineered to synthesize human versions of the proteins. Their blood can also contain twice as many antibodies per millilitre as human blood

Well, they actually produce a load of antibodies. Because they have more blood than humans but they can also produce twice as many per millilitre compared to humans! And they produce a wider variety of antibodies - more on that in my next few posts - so increasing the chances that one of them will work when trying to fight the coronavirus.

Ok... so cows might have more antibodies but how is that going to help us?

There is something called artificial passive immunity. This uses externally produced antibodies to fight off disease. Here the cows can produce human antibodies on mass. Those antibodies have been shown to have positive effects so far in animals that have been infected with the virus. ⚠️ PSA - this data has not yet been peer-reviewed or published yet. These antibodies are scheduled to be tested in human clinical trials 👫this summer to test their effectiveness at preventing COVID-19.

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It will be interesting to see more data and results from this company. But it sounds like another promising angle. Although so far no antibodies generated by animals have been approved to treat any disease.🦠

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Let's see what their next moo-ve is! Sorry I had to 🙈

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UPSAC 2020 Yo, I won the first, best paper prize! 😁

UPASC- 2020

Receiving best poster award

In the picture, I am with, Capt. Vikas Gupta, Dr I.N. Mukherjees, Dr P.K Singh,  Professor IAS BHU, &  Dr Trilochan Mahapatra, well-known biotechnologist and Plant Breeder and DG of ICAR, Delhi

                    5^th UTTAR PRADESH AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE CONGRESS 2020  (UPASC-20) is UPCAR and Agricultural Research Council of India organised symposium (happened month of February, late post, because I just got the time to share).

The symposium was supported by five major agriculture institute in India which includes NABARD, International Potato Research Center, IARI, New Delhi, UPCAR, IAS BHU, Looking back, I feel like I have improved my presentation skills over time since I joined Masters. Before coming out of my home town, I used to think, "OMG, I am little stammer also not a Fluent English speaker, a guy from a small town, also I am just a master student while maximum participants pursuing their PhD in the respective subject in well known Institute and research centre in nationwide,  I am no way comparable to these Students who already from very decent background and no matter how hard I try but how can I compete against them"

Even though I am not a trained public speaker in my mother tongue. I attend many Conferences and such competition before in my UGs but that situation is much different. however, speaking in English, I was never that confident!

However, after coming at BHU, I have changed my perception. I have developed my confidence in presenting science, in English! I don't consider myself a pro-presenter, however here are certain things I follow while making slides for any presentation:

 

1) The audience - knowing the audience helps in the tailor-making introduction, to decide the extent of simplification required.

2) Time limit - to decide the amount of content.

3) The storyline or the flow: This includes deciding what goes first, second, third and so on. Choosing the important data that is required to support the story. i.e the most important finding. Definitely, it is impossible to present all the data you have!

4) Colour or theme: I prefer black text, white background and pink and green for text highlights. 

I think it is better to use multi colours.

5) Animations: I like using the "appear" animation in my slides as it helps in getting the focus to what I am talking as I click

6) Practice: No matter how much experienced you are, it is always best to practice. This helps in efficient time management and in adding or removing a few slides.

Hope this helps, is anything missing here? Add in the comments if any!

 

Tuberculosis & COVID-19 Pandemic

Tuberculosis & COVID-19 Pandemic

Corona-viruses are a large family of viruses that usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses, like the common cold, in people. There are hundreds of corona-viruses, most of which circulate among animals including pigs, camels, bats, and cats. Sometimes those viruses jump to humans—called a spillover event—and can cause disease. After a Pandemic outbreak from china, The disease is now called COVID-19. 

The virus has caused a widespread outbreak of disease similar to SARS throughout China, with exported cases occurring in 183 other countries, including India. 

Ultrastructure of  COVID-19

But, you need not suffer from this evil COVID-19, else we can say, you will not get affected with COVID-19 at all if you had vaccinated with Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) (Vaccine for Tuberculosis)

Yes! Sam Behar, and his colleague at the Department of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, US. Recently published a peer-reviewed paper and show that “ BCG stimulates general immune response” called Trained Immunity. This results in faster response to infections that could reduce the severity of disease and lead to faster recovery.

BCG —(Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) developed in 1921 in France Epidemiological data, however, showed it could be effective against the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2). This vaccine is composed of a live, weakened strain of the bacterium Mycobacterium Bovis, related to tuberculosis (TB) pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Trained Immunity

How Vaccines Works ...

when you are attacked by a microbe, the innate immune system started doing his duty.

Monocytes - types of white blood cells — penetrate the infected tissue, convert to macrophages and provide the first line of defense.

But Vaccines, on the other hand, lead to the development of the acquired immune system in the human body. This works slowly and focuses specifically on certain invaders.

BCG vaccination has been shown to produce positive “heterologous” or non-specific immune effects leading to improved response against other non-mycobacterial pathogens. For instance, BCG vaccinated mice infected with the virus were protected by increased IFN-Y production from CD4+ cell. 

This phenomenon is called Trained immunity and is proposed to be caused by metabolic and epigenetic changes leading to the promotion of genetic regions encoding for pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Multiplication of COVID-19 in alveoli cells. 

BCG vaccination significantly increases the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, specifically, IL-1B, which has been shown to play a vital role in antiviral immunity. 

The correlation between the beginning of universal BCG vaccination and the protection against COVID-19 suggests that

BCG might confer long-lasting protection against the current strain of coronavirus. 

However, randomized controlled trials using BCG are required to determine how fast an immune response develops that protects against COVID-19. BCG is generally innocuous with the main side effect of the development of inflammation at the site of injection so care should be taken when applying these possible interventions for COVID-19.

I'm trying to understand the molecular mechanism behind this, and, once I'm clear with it, I'll share it with you.

Understood this relation? Got any doubt? anything wrong in my explanation? Kindly comment and I would try to reply or correct as soon as possible.

Disclaimer: I wrote this article based on my understanding after reading a paper. There may be mistakes. If you find any, kindly let me know with your valuable comments.

References :

• Kristensen, I., Aaby, P. & Jensen, H. Routine vaccinations and child survival: Follow up study in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Br. Med. J. 321, 1435–1439 (2000).
• Zwerling, A. et al. The BCG world atlas: A database of global BCG vaccination policies and practices. PLoS Med. 8, (2011).
• Zhou, F. et al. Articles Clinical course and risk factors for mortality of adult inpatients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China : a retrospective cohort study. Lancet 6736, 1–9 (2020).
• Japan was expecting a coronavirus explosion. Where is it? | The Japan Times. Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/20/national/coronavirus-explosion expected-japan/#.XnllWahKjIU. (Accessed: 23rd March 2020)
• Development and expectation of the tuberculosis service system in China. Available at: http://www.zgflzz.cn/EN/Y2012/V34/I9/557. (Accessed: 24th March 2020)
• Komine-Aizawa, S. et al. Influence of advanced age on Mycobacterium Bovis BCG vaccination in guinea pigs iatrogenically infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Clin. Vaccine Immunol. 17, 1500–1506 (2010).
• Moorlag, S. J. C. F. M., Arts, R. J. W., van Crevel, R. & Netea, M. G. Non-specific effects of BCG vaccine on viral infections. Clinical Microbiology and Infection 25, 1473–1478 (2019).
• Horwitz, M. A., Harth, G., Dillon, B. J. & Masleša-Galić, S. Commonly administered BCG strains including an evolutionarily early strain and evolutionarily late strains of disparate genealogy induce comparable protective immunity against tuberculosis. Vaccine 27, 441– 445 (2009).
• Fact Sheets | Infection Control & Prevention | Fact Sheet - BCG Vaccine | TB | CDC. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/prevention/bcg.htm. (Accessed: 23rd March 2020)

Be Ready for Fail if you are a Biotechnologist ..

Fail? ? ? 

"Oh,  on, you should not say like this"

Is this what you are feeling, after looking at this title? If so, don't worry, I'm not meaning this in a negative way as you think.

Everyone in life has ups and downs. What about this field of Biotechnology? It's not preferred by many students.

 Yes, I agree, it is not like the IT field, you can't find a perfect job after completing just your under-graduation, even if you find a job, that won't pay you much. So, obviously, people will go for areas which would give them a bagful of money.

"You think, Biotechnology is worthless then? you say, you won't get paid?", is this your next question?
If so, I'm not saying that.

Biotechnology, here, you can achieve heights only after years of enthusiasm and work in your laboratory. It's not the matter of earning money. This field is for people who want to achieve or discover something which is in your own body, in plants around you  in animals and in all living things around you.

And, now, we came away from our talk on failure. Why I mentioned like, be ready to fail. It's because, You won't succeed in most of your experiments in a single attempt ! And, that's why I asked you to be ready.

When we try to Extract DNA and clone in our lab, we repeated the ligation step twice, we tried different vectors even. And at last we succeeded,

 it's not like debugging a  C or C++ coding where you could look into the coding with your naked eye, you have to trouble shoot something which you can't see with your naked eyes! Looks difficult? But, it won't be, when you love this beautiful field - Biotechnology. 

Failures will become a part of your life and you will enjoy your success which comes after every failure. And, the moment see your experiment giving positive result, ah, that is happiness, the real happiness. Only you would feel this, if you were a biology person! (or a person who has maximum interest in any field.

Every little thing you do in your lab will fail, but, don't worry, it'll be followed by a success!

Happy Learning 😊😊😊😊

#Repost