Alpacas are cute, friendly, and provide luxurious wool. And now we find that they might have medicinal value! Immunologists have long known that alpacas have a unique immune system, which involves single-domain antibodies called nanobodies. This type of antibody is engineered to attack a single type of infection, but they are much smaller than human antibodies, which make them more useful to medical science.
Here's how that works: an alpaca can be infected with a specific microbe, and they will produce nanobodies to fight it. These nanobodies can be harvested and identified, then injected into bacteria which can reproduce them at a high volume, a process that is difficult if not impossible with our much larger antibodies. The bacteria factories are able to produce usable numbers of nanobodies. Researchers have already used this technique to produce nanobodies for cancer research and to fight COVID. Now they are looking into using nanobodies to fight chronic inflammation, which is what happens when our own immune systems continue to fight even after an infection is defeated. This research might open up new treatments for more common conditions, such as arthritis. Read about the research into alpaca nanobodies at New Atlas. -via Damn Interesting