When protein biologist Yi Shi started his lab at the University of Pittsburgh four years ago, he was excited to develop potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. He worked out a pipeline for making nanobodies, small antibody fragments with high binding affinities. His research program was getting off the ground. Then the pandemic started.
In March 2020, Shi made the hard and risky decision to halt his research and join the scientific community in their efforts to mitigate COVID-19. Shi did not know much about virology and felt that he was struggling through darkness in the beginning. But motivation from a colleague inspired him to give it a try, and the decision paid off.
Shi and his team developed inhalable nanobodies that protected hamsters infected with SARS-CoV-2 against COVID-19. The findings bring Shi and colleagues one step closer to producing a treatment that may help bring an end to the pandemic.
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