Prognosis
Profiling Coronavirus Mutations Helps Scientists Find Weak Spots
- Research yields blueprints for better vaccines and treatments
- WHO recommends Regeneron antibody therapy for high-risk Covid
Photographer: BSIP/Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images
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Erica Ollmann Saphire spent the past year and a half profiling the coronavirus, creating intricate three-dimensional images in her San Diego lab to understand its most problematic features. That information is now revealing the pathogen’s weak spots and ways to exploit them.
Using an 11-foot (3.35 meter) tall microscope, the most powerful commercially available, she’s scoured hundreds of different antibodies against the Covid culprit to identify its salient features. The research at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology led to a study Thursday in Science that gives the most detailed map yet of how to circumvent the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s panoply of mutations and variants.