A llama could prove key in the hunt for a treatment for Covid-19, say experts. US and Belgian scientists have identified a tiny particle that appears to block coronavirus, with a llama called Winter central to their studies.
A team from Belgium’s VIB-UGent centre for medical biotechnology and the University of Texas at Austin published their research on Tuesday in the journal Cell.
They began four years ago looking into antibodies that might counter the SARS virus, which spread in 2003, and the 2012 MERS virus. “The work was a side project in 2016, we thought maybe this was interesting,” said Xavier Saelens, joint leader of the Belgian part of the collaboration. “Then the new virus came and it became potentially more crucial, more