Antibody production in vertebrates is an amazing example of an extremely efficient directed evolution system within our own tissues.
There is some interesting work being done to mine antibodies from people who have recovered from diseases and use those as a therapeutic medicine. Worked great for Ebola, would also work for COVID-19, but scaling production is really really hard (maybe some schlep blindness there)!
If I recall correctly, they pretty much put the gene for the anti-ebola antibody into a plasmid in bacteria, then vacuumed those bacteria into tobacco, which mated with the tobacco, which caused over-expression of the antibody. Then, you grind up the plant, and purify the protein.
I'm interested in trying that out with my own blood - effectively making open source antibodies for different diseases. I also know a few folks working on DNA vaccination, which could have an interesting intersection.
There is some interesting work being done to mine antibodies from people who have recovered from diseases and use those as a therapeutic medicine. Worked great for Ebola, would also work for COVID-19, but scaling production is really really hard (maybe some schlep blindness there)!
If I recall correctly, they pretty much put the gene for the anti-ebola antibody into a plasmid in bacteria, then vacuumed those bacteria into tobacco, which mated with the tobacco, which caused over-expression of the antibody. Then, you grind up the plant, and purify the protein.
I'm interested in trying that out with my own blood - effectively making open source antibodies for different diseases. I also know a few folks working on DNA vaccination, which could have an interesting intersection.