Mitch LeslieScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.The latest recruits in the fight against COVID-19 are munching hay in a South Dakota barn.
A biotech company has coaxed genetically modified cows to pump out human antibodies that subdue SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the deadly disease, and it plans to start clinical trials of them this summer.“This is promising,” says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “We want to have as many countermeasures as we can.”To manufacture antibodies for treating or preventing diseases, companies typically turn to sources such as cultured cells or tobacco plants.