Tiny alpaca-derived antibodies point to targets preventing viral infection
Monday, June 20, 2016 - 10:01
in Health & Medicine
Whitehead Institute scientists have determined how to use alpaca-derived, single-domain antibody fragments (also called VHHs or nanobodies) to perturb cellular processes in mammalian cells, including the infection of human cells by influenza A virus (IAV) and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). With improved knowledge of protein activity, scientists can tease apart the roles individual proteins play in cellular pathways, understand how disease corrupts cellular function, and begin to design interventions to rectify such aberrations.