Chilean alpaca Pedro helping scientists fight deadly bat-borne viruses Hendra and Nipah

A Chilean alpaca named Pedro could hold the key fighting two deadly viruses in a major breakthrough.

A South American alpaca named Pedro has helped Queensland scientists unlock a way of blocking deadly bat-borne viruses including Hendra.

A Chilean alpaca named Pedro could hold the key to fighting two deadly bat-borne viruses — including Hendra — in a breakthrough by a team of Queensland researchers.

The discovery by University of Queensland researchers is a new strategy in preventing the spread of Nipah and Hendra viruses, which have been contracted by people from animals in Asia and Australia and there is no approved human vaccine or cure for.

A team led by Professor Daniel Watterson and Dr Ariel Isaacs has identified the first ever nanobody – one-tenth the size of an antibody – small enough to access hard-to-reach areas of the viruses to block infection.

“What we’re trying to do is build a portfolio of therapies that we have on hand, ready to go in case there is an outbreak or an epidemic,” Dr Isaacs said.

“What we discovered … it’s a very small antibody that is able to bind to these viruses and neutralise them with very high potency.”

Dr Ariel Isaacs from the University of Queensland.

The nanobody, called DS90, was among a series isolated by research partners at Universidad Austral de Chile from the immune cells of an alpaca called Pedro.

Camelids, including camels, llamas and alpacas, are the only land animals which produce nanobodies.

Tests at UQ found Pedro’s DS90 nanobody could bind successfully to proteins in Nipah and Hendra viruses and block their ability to enter cells, protecting animals from infection.

“This new information is a crucial step towards using a nanobody to combat Hendra and Nipah, which cause outbreaks in people and can often lead to fatal respiratory and neurological disease,” Prof Watterson said.

The team also combined the DS90 nanobody with a developmental antibody therapy that demonstrated the Nipah virus could be prevented from mutating and evolving.

Professor Daniel Watterson and Dr Ariel Isaacs.

First identified in Brisbane in 1994, Hendra has been contracted by people from horses and flying foxes in eastern Australia, while human Nipah virus outbreaks occur almost annually in Bangladesh and occasionally in other Asian countries where it is carried by bats.

The overnight publication of the UQ research in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology is timely after the death of an unvaccinated horse tested positive for Hendra in southeast Queensland was confirmed on Sunday — the first case in the state in three years.

Dr Isaacs said the next step was to translate the research findings into a therapeutic to be clinically ready in case of an outbreak of Hendra in Australia or Nipah in Asia.

Human phase one clinical trials are needed to make sure the nanobody was well tolerated in people, and in a phase two, they would be given to people who are at risk of contracting these diseases.

“Other nanobodies have been approved for use as cancer treatments and it is now exciting to see that nanobodies can also be used to neutralise viruses,” Dr Isaacs said.

Originally published as Chilean alpaca Pedro helping scientists fight deadly bat-borne viruses Hendra and Nipah