Promising nanobodies against COVID-19 produced by llamas
Thought LeadersDr. David BrodyProfessor of NeurologyUniformed Services University
In this interview, News-Medical speaks to Dr. David Brody about his latest research that involved discovering nanobodies produced by llamas that could help combat coronavirus.
What provoked your research into the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic?
We are neuroscientists, so it was a bit of a shift in direction! For several years TJ and I had been testing out how to use nanobodies to make brain imaging better. When the pandemic broke, we thought this is a once in a lifetime, all-hands-deck situation and joined the fight.
reporter: at one point doctors even told them to start looking for hospice care. we wound up moving over her her neurological care over to nyu because they were doing the cannabis oil study at the time, and we wanted to participate in that. reporter: that cannabis oil study was the beginning of the trial for treatment resistant epilepsy. the doctor oversaw the trial at nyu. some of the kids right now, their lives were completely transformed. they went from having hundreds of small seizures a day, kind of sitting in a heel chair slumped over with almost no interaction with the environment to being seizure-free. their lives were transformed. from the first time we had an eeg recording sewing she was having over 100 seizures a day, the last eeg we did at nyu showed one seizure over a 24-hour period. reporter: the dr. will be the first to tell you the drug is not a miracle drug, far from it. while some have had dramatic