科学家们预测，可能会出现另一场疫情。他们已经确定了可能导致这种病毒的病毒——尽管卫生与公众服务部告诉我们，很少有针对这些病毒的抗病毒药物获得批准或正在卫生与公众事务部资助的临床试验中
这项研究为碳水化合物微阵列的发现和抗寡甘露糖抗体作为侵袭性前列腺癌症（PCa）新血清生物标志物的大规模血清学验证搭建了桥梁。在实验上，建立了Man9簇特异性酶联免疫吸附测定法，以便能够灵敏地检测人类血清中的抗Man9抗体。斯坦福大学储存了大量患有前列腺癌或良性前列腺增生症（BPH）的男性血清，使用该测定法对其进行了表征。受试者包括100%格里森3级癌症患者（n = 84），具有Gleason 4级和/或5级癌症（n = 204）和BPH对照组（n = 135）。根治性前列腺切除术Gleason分级和生化（PSA）复发是评估血清生物标志物的关键参数。发现IgGMan9和IgMMan9广泛存在于前列腺增生症患者和癌症患者的血清中。然而，这些抗体反应性在高级别癌症患者中显著增加。血清IgGMan9和IgMMan9的检测可显著预测前列腺癌根治术后前列腺癌的临床结果。鉴于这些结果，我们认为IgGMan9和IgMMan9是监测前列腺癌侵袭性进展的新的血清生物标志物。寡甘露糖基抗原作为PCa亚型和靶向免疫治疗靶点的潜力尚待探索。
Antibodies are indispensable in biological research and medical diagnostics. However, their production is time-consuming, expensive, and requires the use of many animals. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, have now developed so-called secondary nanobodies that can replace the most-used antibodies and may drastically reduce the number of animals in antibody production. This is possible because the secondary nanobodies can be produced in large scale by bacteria. Moreover, the secondary nanobodies outperform their traditional antibody counterparts in key cell-biological applications.
哥廷根马克斯·普朗克生物物理化学研究所的Dirk Görlich和Tino Pleiner获得了联邦食品和农业部动物福利奖。这两位科学家最近成功地开发出了二次纳米体，可以取代传统的二次抗体。后者广泛用于医学诊断和基础研究，并在山羊、绵羊或驴等大型实验动物中进行工业规模生产。因此，研究人员的发明可以大大减少用于抗体生产的动物数量。
Göttingen researchers have developed mini-antibodies that efficiently block the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 and its dangerous new variants. These so-called nanobodies bind and neutralize the virus up to 1000 times better than previously developed mini-antibodies. In addition, the scientists optimized their mini-antibodies for stability and resistance to extreme heat. This unique combination makes them promising agents to treat Covid-19. Since nanobodies can be produced at low costs in large quantities, they could meet the global demand for Covid-19 therapeutics. The new nanobodies are currently in preparation for clinical trials.
