Mallika Dureja
Scientists have found parts of the coronavirus that don’t change, or “coldspots from covid.” A new study shows that antibodies that target these coldspots may help fight future coronaviruses.
The coronavirus is always changing, which is how it gets past our immune systems. But does the whole coronavirus change, or do parts of it stay the same?
By analysing samples from COVID-19 convalescent individuals, the researchers found that some had antibodies specific for the coldspots, the study said.#Coldspots #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/sylhvoTYjp
— Afrah Shah (@afrahshah1) January 28, 2023
In the study, two PhD students at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Switzerland and affiliated with the Universit della Svizzera italiana looked at more than 10 million coronavirus sequences. They found that some parts of the virus spike, which is the part of the virus that helps it infect human cells, were remarkably stable.
One of the researchers, Virginia Crivelli, said, “We call these ‘coldspots.’ Most of the virus changes quickly, but we found 15 places where it doesn’t.”
The study said that when researchers looked at samples from people who had recovered from COVID-19, they found that some of them had antibodies that were only found in the coldspots.
The other researcher, Filippo Bianchini, said, “These antibodies are very rare, but thanks to a new method, we were able to find them.”
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The study said that the antibodies stopped covid virus infection in the lab, even with the most recent versions of viruses that are a concern. They also stopped disease in preclinical models.
“It’s likely that new coronaviruses that can make people sick will appear. Davide Robbiani, the head of the IRB and the study’s senior author, said, “Our results suggest that it may already be possible to make countermeasures that are effective against both current and future coronaviruses.”
