LONDON — The camel, some people scathingly suggest, is nothing better than a horse designed by a committee. If that is true, one thing is for sure: the committee must have had an immunologist as a member.
A team from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a desert country with a quarter of a million camels, has gathered together all the current research into the animal's unique immune system. It appears that camels — whether with one hump or two — are less susceptible to a whole host of diseases, including foot and mouth disease, Rift Valley fever, mad cow disease and African horse sickness. The reason behind this is the camel's antibody structure, which is less complex than that of humans. And it's thought that this simplified structure could be used to create antibodies that could eventually help humans as well.
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