I love my children’s pediatrician.
I loved Dr. Yaback, my own childhood pediatrician, who passed away five years ago.
Pediatricians are remarkable. They choose to treat children, which strikes me as both noble and a huge pain-in-the-ass.
Kids don’t exactly make for the best patients.
Pediatricians also don’t make nearly as much money as most other medical specialties.
They aren’t doing it for the money.
But it turns out that pediatricians might be more remarkable than previously thought.
In the fight against common childhood illnesses, scientists have turned to an unusual source:
The blood of pediatricians.
It turns out that pediatricians’ blood is rich in powerful antibodies that could be used as preventive treatments, outperforming approved antibody therapies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and a common cold virus.
Pediatricians are almost constantly exposed to respiratory viruses, making them a potentially underexplored resource in the hunt for highly potent antibodies against such pathogens.
A team of scientists at Hui Zhai at the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University screened the blood of 10 pediatricians who had been working at the hospital for over a decade. From this, the researchers identified 56 potent antibodies against RSV in pediatricians’ immune cells.
The researchers then generated artificial versions of these antibodies and tested them in the lab, finding that three were particularly active against a diverse range of RSV strains. One of the three also neutralized human metapneumovirus, which belongs to the same virus family as RSV and is a common cause of colds, but can also lead to severe illness in some children.
Just imagine:
Not only is your child’s pediatrician keeping your children healthy, but they might also someday be the source for medicines that cure common childhood ailments.
When the researchers are done with pediatricians, may I suggest they turn their attention to teachers, particularly those in the lower grades. A pediatrician is exposed to one child at a time for a short period and often benefits from wearing a mask.
Teachers occupy a room with two dozen other sniffly, sneezing, nose-picking children every day for more than seven hours.
Our blood might well be superhuman.
