- DARPA’s Pandemic Prevention Platform is working on a therapy that could be given to people in advance of a vaccine.
- The therapy could involve making the human body boost antibodies it would normally create upon infection with a disease such as coronavirus.
- The antibodies could help ward off the coronavirus until a vaccine is ready.
The Pentagon’s cutting edge science department is working to create a therapeutic “shield” that could be mass produced to provide temporary protection for people from diseases like the coronavirus, boosting their immunity until an actual vaccine is developed. The result could also help slow the viruses’ advance, buying time for hard-pressed hospitals and clinics worldwide.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has funded efforts to create such therapies from studying COVID-19 samples from individuals who have already recovered from the virus. Scientists working with the organization’s Pandemic Prevention Platform (PPP) are sequencing the B cells of one individual who recovered from COVID-19. B cells create antibodies, proteins created by the human immune system to fight a particular invading microorganism.
If scientists can successfully sequence the B cells, the hope is that they can create a therapy that causes humans to build up an arsenal of COVID-19-fighting antibodies before infection takes place. That could make it more difficult for a person treated with the therapy to come down with the disease, buying time until that person can be vaccinated. According to DefenseOne, the therapy might also be useful for those already infected with the virus.
In many countries fighting the disease the key to keeping mortality down is the availability of intensive care unit beds and respirators. If the number of patients exceeds the number of critical care beds, mortality begins to rise. A therapeutic could spread out infections over a longer period of time, preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed.
The therapy, if developed, could be controversial. Similar therapies, according to NPR, have only involved tens of test subjects, not hundreds or even thousands. The science behind the process is sound and progress could be rapid: the head of the PPP program is quoted by National Public Radio as saying the therapy could be ready in as little as three months.
According to most medical authorities, a COVID-19 vaccine is 12-18 months away. The U.S. is currently under-testing compared to much of the industrialized world, and we don’t know the extent of the disease’s spread. DARPA’s therapeutic could become instrumental in fighting the spread of the disease across the U.S., and even the world.
Source: DefenseOne
Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.
