Alpacas are solving your cat allergy and not in the way you might think.
Alpacas, along with a few other animals, produce something that no other animals do – something called “nanobodies,” which are antibodies but super tiny yet just as effective.
Nanobodies can squeeze into places that our normal antibodies can’t. So, these scientists figured out how to reverse-engineer nano bodies to break down Fel d1, the main allergen in cat saliva. The results are pretty impressive, 98% efficacy, with people reporting they can stay in homes with cats without symptoms.
What’s really exciting is that nanobody technology is being developed for other medical purposes like COVID and cancer treatment. It’s one of those solutions that came from a pretty unexpected place.
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Alpacas are now solving your cat allergy. Around 10 to 20% of the world’s population are allergic to cats, but most people think they’re allergic to cat dander, but that’s actually not the major culprit. It’s an allergen called Feld D1, a tiny protein that cats produce in their saliva. So, when a cat grooms itself, that protein spreads everywhere. The current cat allergy solutions aren’t ideal, but now the newest solution is coming from one of the most unlikely sources. imaginable, an alpaca. In 2019, Dr. Evan Xiao and his wife, Dr. Sang Han, adopted a cat named Meow Meow. Within weeks, her allergies became so severe they faced an impossible choice. Give up their cat or suffer. Xiao, a biotechnology scientist, refused both options. So, he started researching and what he discovered changed their lives and many others. It turns out that alpacas along with llamas, camels, and a few species of sharks have something in their immune system that no other mammals on Earth possess. They produce something called nanobodies. While your immune system makes traditional antibodies that look like the letter Y and are made up of heavy and light protein chains, alpacas make something totally different. Their antibodies have no light chains at all. They’re just a single heavy chain domain, making them about onetenth the size of regular antibodies. But here’s what makes them extraordinary. Despite their size, nanobodies are incredibly powerful. They can squeeze into spaces that normal antibodies can’t reach, are stable at extreme temperatures, withstand harsh pH conditions, and bind to targets with the same affinity as full-size antibodies. Xiao’s team took the concept of alpaca nanobodies and reverse engineered them to create whisker block technology synthetic proteins that hunt down the feld D1 and break it apart at the molecular level. FD1 exists as four protein units locked together. Whisker block breaks them into single harmless units your immune system doesn’t recognize. Now the team has turned this into a home spray. You mix the power with the solution and then spray on your couch, your bed, your carpets. Within 10 to 15 minutes, it neutralizes the allergens. But this goes beyond cats. Nanobiotechnology is being developed to fight COVID, treat cancer, and deliver drugs across the bloodb brain barrier. And that is the epitome of science, where one fluffy animal saves your sinuses from another fluffy animal. If you like science we’re sharing like this then follow us everywhere at today science at til science.
