The Israeli Scientist Investigating a New Way to Fight the Coronavirus with the Help of a Llama

Nov. 18 2020

Llamas are native to neither the Levant nor to New England, but a scientist in Jerusalem, using antibodies taken from a llama in Massachusetts, may have discovered a highly effective treatment for COVID-19. Unlike the vaccines that have recently been in the news, this treatment can be given to patients who already have the virus to hasten their recovery. Nathan Jeffay writes:

Dina Schneidman-Duhovny . . . has examined the qualities of dozens of antibodies from a llama called Wally, and identified which would best fight the coronavirus in humans. The best candidates have been tested in vitro by her U.S.-based colleagues with live coronavirus and human cells, and appear to reduce significantly the virus’s ability to infect cells.

Since llama antibodies are much smaller than human antibodies—they are often dubbed “nanobodies”—they are simpler and cheaper to replicate artificially. Researchers say they would not need to be taken intravenously, unlike human antibodies, and could be dosed via an inhaler, which is already being developed for clinical testing.

“They are highly potent,” Schneidman-Duhovny [said], adding that the nanobodies have the potential to help millions of patients. “The antibodies stick to the virus and just don’t come off, almost acting like glue. The antibodies are also very specific, targeting the novel coronavirus very precisely.”

Schneidman-Duhovny said that judging by their in-vitro performance, her team’s antibodies are more effective than anything seen to date. . . . . Her research, which has just been peer-reviewed and published in the journal Science, focuses on the potential of synthetically made antibodies, based on those produced by Wally, who lives on a Massachusetts farm.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Coronavirus, Medicine, Science

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023