"You imbecile!" bellowed Moe Howard as he stuck a finger up the nose of Curly. Moe the bully would often flick his hand across an unsuspecting face or deliver a two-pronged eye poke to distract from a simultaneous, more serious blow, elsewhere.
Moe, Larry, and Shemp/Curly/Joe were the various incarnations of The Three Stooges, the famed comedy team, with roots in vaudeville, who made films and TV shows from 1922 until 1970. Many of us growing up in the sixties loved them, while many of our parents didn't. The 2012 film didn't do the original three idiots justice.
An image of Moe poking Curly popped into my head while reading two new papers in Science that report teaming antibodies to tackle SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19.
The papers describe the basis of two clinical trials that biotech company Regeneron is conducting to assess a pair of antibodies that work together, binding the viral spike protein where it contacts the human receptor (ACE2) and gains entry into our cells, but at different sites within the "receptor-binding domain." One antibody is a distractor of sorts, like Moe's finger-up-the-nose.
The key to the technology is in the coupling. "Our work inventing novel antibodies has shown that individual antibodies, no matter how good, are likely not enough against the devastating virus that causes COVID-19 and the ways it seeks to 'escape' being neutralized," said George D. Yancopoulos, MD, PhD, Co-Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer at Regeneron.
An antibody cocktail – pitched as "antibody medicine" – provides short-term, passive immunity, as opposed to the lasting active immunity of a vaccine, in which the body learns to manufacture its own antibodies. The Chinese proverb "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" makes the distinction: an antibody cocktail is a fish, a vaccine the ability to fish. Both are needed desperately right now. Antibody protection would last weeks or months.
Viral Resistance is a Natural Consequence of Evolution
To continue reading, go to DNA Science, where this post first appeared.