If you can´t find something, the best thing to do is stop looking where it is not.
Are coronavirus researchers looking in the wrong places?
If so, a vaccine may be further away than ever. Perhaps, never.
It need not be that way.
Researchers are focusing on producing a vaccine consisting of antibodies produced by people who recovered from coronavirus. In our view, there is another more productive area.
This post is a follow-up to our post of May 8: "A New/Old Approach to a Corona Virus Core." It stated our fundamental position:
"Antibodies search out and destroy invading antigens. Needless to say, if the antigen keeps changing its surface, antibodies cannot do their job. That is exactly what happens with the HIV virus. Is the coronavirus presenting an equivalent challenge?
Our new/old approach involves an alternative to treatment with antibodies. It consists of coating healthy cells so that the virus cannot attach itself.
In summary, the coronavirus would not be hunted down by antibodies. Blocked, the virus could not do anything. Yes, the virus would be there, inside the body, but the virus would simply pass through it."
Providing a protecting coating to healthy cells to prevent unwanted interactions is not new.
Antihistamines work by coating receptors in the nose, eyes, throat, etc., so that they do not recognize histamines produced by the body to fight off invading substances such as ragweed pollen and cat fur. The binding of histamines to the receptors is what causes the allergic reactions we all know only too well. No binding; no allergic reaction. Yes, the invader is still there, inside the body; so, too, are the histamines. They harmlessly go away, that´s all.
Blocked.
The University of Washington is pursuing, in its way, the blocking molecule approach. They are focusing on proteins as the substance that would provide the coating. Their website:
"Design a binder against coronavirus! In late 2019, a new highly-infections virus emerged out of Wuhan, China. This virus belongs to the coronavirus family, and is similar to the virus that caused the SARS epidemic in 2002. Coronaviruses display a "spike" protein on their surface, which binds tightly to a receptor protein found on the surface of human cells. Once the coronavirus spike binds to the human receptor, the virus can infect the human cell and replicate. In recent weeks, researchers have determined the structure of the 2019 coronavirus spike protein and how it binds to human receptors. If we can design a protein that binds to this coronavirus spike protein, it could be used to block the interaction with human cells and halt infection!"
The Washington approach varies in an important -- perhaps crucial -- way from the one we advocate. They seek to attach the blocking molecules to the corona virus spike, not to healthy cells.
I am the Number 1 Fan of the University of Washington´s research; if it produces a solution, I will be the first to applaud.
However, I cannot help but raise a serious question:
The word "coronavirus" is not limited to the particular virus causing the pandemic right now, It designates a class of viruses, including the common cold and SARS, that have a crown-shaped spike of proteins on top. The World Health Organization named it "COVID-19" to set it apart from other coronaviruses. It was initially called "2019 Novel Coronavirus."
My question: if the University of Washington´s approach will work, why hasn´t it worked before on other coronaviruses, particularly the one causing the common cold?
Our difference stated as a one-liner: same church, different pew.
I find it intriguing that the University of Washington is working on a protein that attacks the attacking virus. In that aspect, their methodology is the same as that of other American and European researchers who are focusing on antibodies. Which leads me to ask a second serious question:
Could the desire to attack the coronavirus either with proteins or antibodies prove to be in the end culture-bound, i.e., irrational, unscientific? When a proposed solution demonstrably does not work yet is attempted over and over again, the unconscious is in control. That is exactly what is not needed at the moment.
* * *
An ancient Aztec god was so powerful he could "steal the sun away."
They say there are no absolutes; however, Tezcatlipoca was absolutely arbitrary. One minute, he could cure a dying man and seconds later cause a drought and kill thousands of people. He was a hybrid god, half devil half Fortune. Nobody ever figured him out. You might as well ask a lottery what it wants.
Killing Tezcatlipoca was out of the question; he was immortal. You could, however, make him go away, at least for a while. That was the accepted solution.
Is the North American, Occidental, Western European, Anglo Saxon, Modern -- whatever you want to call it -- culture so obsessed with defeating, exterminating, killing an enemy that it is incapable of conceiving of another tactic: make him go away? Not ignoring him, but simply not acknowledging him? No binding; no reaction.
The heart of our approach:
COVID-19 would not be tracked down, attacked and destroyed, covered with proteins or eliminated by antibodies. The body would seem as it has always seemed. The virus would be there, inside the body, but would harmlessly pass through it.
Exactly as it has done and is doing right now in countless millions of people and animals.
University of Washington´s Institute for Protein Design: their video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=187&v=jBNCj2vqau0&feature=emb_logo.
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