It's a bird! It's a plane! Actually, it's SUPER-antibodies

Yes, I am not making this up.

Super-potent human antibodies protect against COVID-19 in animal tests

"For the new project, [Thomas] Rogers (M.D., Ph.D.) and his UC San Diego colleagues took blood samples from patients who had recovered from mild-to-severe COVID-19. In parallel, scientists at Scripps Research and IAVI developed test cells that express ACE2, the receptor that SARS-CoV-2 uses to get into human cells. In a set of initial experiments, the team tested whether antibody-containing blood from the patients could bind to the virus and strongly block it from infecting the test cells.

The scientists were able to isolate more than 1,000 distinct antibody-producing immune cells, called B cells, each of which produced a distinct anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody. The team obtained the antibody gene sequences from these B cells so that they could produce the antibodies in the laboratory. By screening these antibodies individually, the team identified several that, even in tiny quantities, could block the virus in test cells, and one that could also protect hamsters against heavy viral exposure.

All of this work -- including the development of the cell and animal infection models, and studies to discover where the antibodies of interest bind the virus -- was completed in less than seven weeks."

So now, we  (collectively) have to make more.

A lot more.

Fast.