{"id":614846,"date":"2026-06-01T07:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/614846\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T07:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T07:19:09","slug":"llamas-named-after-only-fools-characters-join-reading-uni-herd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/614846\/","title":{"rendered":"Llamas named after Only Fools characters join Reading Uni herd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The now 23-strong herd are used by researchers to study nanobodies &#8211; a type of miniature antibody that only certain animals, including llamas, can produce. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Nanobodies are far smaller than standard human antibodies, making them easier to engineer into drugs and use as new research tools, the university explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said scientists extracted them from the llamas&#8217; blood after exposing the animals to a small quantity of a virus &#8211; much like the vaccination process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said the llamas were not at all harmed by these procedures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">During the Covid-19 pandemic, nanobodies from the Reading herd were used to contribute to research into treatments for the virus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Prof Stevens said the llamas were &#8220;doing something quite incredible&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The nanobodies we get from them are being used in research that could one day change how we treat cancer, infectious diseases and much more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They are rather extraordinary creatures,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The research is supported by the company Llamatech NBS, which is a spin-out of the university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The now 23-strong herd are used by researchers to study nanobodies &#8211; a type of miniature antibody that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-614846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}