Supporting Science in a world of COVID-19! 11th August 2020

Pfizer and BioNTech have stated that they have advanced their COVID-19 vaccine candidate from one nucleoside modified candidate, BNT162b1 to BNT162b2. According to the companies, BNT16b2 encodes an optimised SARS-CoV-2 full length spike glycoprotein, which is the optimum target of virus neutralizing antibodies.

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It has been confirmed that Eli Lilly became the first company to start testing an anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody in humans at the start of June. Despite this, Eli Lilly have taken a different approach to their peers by choosing to develop a single antibody candidate in their trials rather than a ‘two antibody’ approach.

Lilly are monitoring signs of resistance and has a combination it can take forward if needed.

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SwiftScale Biologics created an antibody development and manufacturing platform that is able to incorporate cell free technology. According to the Biotech company, the new platform not only speeds up the optimization of protein design, but also produces high yields of therapeutics, promising to speed up antibody production 10 -fold.

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It has been found that there is a potential link between one of the immune system’s oldest branches, the complement system and coagulation dysfunction. The two combined could be influencing the severity of COVID-19 within patients. The team from Columbia University Irving Medical Centre have discovered that the clotting activity and mutations in certain complement and coagulation genes are associated with the hospitalization of patients.

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In the USA, the total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the first 6 days of August has increased by 10.3% compared to July. A total of 298,083 cases were confirmed between 1st-6th July in the USA, unfortunately, August increased to 328,877 (1st-6th).

Here at Baker, it is our mission to continuing #SupportingScience and its discoveries across the globe.

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Sources: 1. https://bit.ly/3i10hPv, 2. https://bit.ly/30s4F48, 3. https://www.genengnews.com/on-your-radar/going-cell-free-can-put-a-rush-on-covid-19-antibody-therapies/, 4. https://bit.ly/30tSCDx, 5. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases?country=~USA#what-is-the-daily-number-of-confirmed-cases