Antibody

Secrets to antibody's success against West Nile Virus surprise scientists

Insights may advance vaccines for related viruses including dengue fever. A monoclonal antibody that can effectively treat mice infected with West Nile virus has an intriguing secret: Contrary to scientists' expectations, it does not block the virus's ability to attach to host cells. Instead, the antibody somehow stops the infectious process at a later point. "This was a complete surprise...

New antibody shows promise as cure for anthrax

A new anthrax antibody engineered by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin protects and defends against inhalation anthrax without the use of antibiotics and other more expensive antibodies. The high-affinity antibody, an anthrax antitoxin, successfully eliminated both anthrax bacteria and its deadly toxins in animal tests. If future tests concur, this could be the first successf...

Computer models aid understanding of antibody-dependent enhancement in spread of dengue fever

Evolutionary trade-off exists between advantage and disadvantage Some viruses' ability to exploit the human body's own defenses to increase their replication may be both a blessing and curse, according to the findings of a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The process is known as antibody-dependent enhancement. Scientists believe antibo...

High resolution 'snapshots' detail dynamics of a cocaine antibody

Cocaine-binding antibodies have shown some promise in their ability to neutralize cocaine toxicity, but their binding ability is severely impaired by high concentrations of the drug. A catalytic monoclonal antibody such as 7A1, on the other hand, has the ability to regenerate after each new dose of the drug, making it far more effective than others in metabolizing cocaine. The study, which...

Buckyballs boost antibody's chemotherapy payload

In the ongoing search for better ways to target anticancer drugs to kill tumors without making people sick, researchers find that nanoparticles called buckyballs might be used to significantly boost the payload of drugs carried by tumor-targeting antibodies. In research due to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Chemical Communications, scientists at Rice University and The Universi...

Combination therapy with a monocloncal antibody and a vaccine leads to tumor rejection

Effector T cells (Teff cells) are involved in activating and directing other immune cells, while regulatory T cells (Tregs) act to curb the over-aggressive responses of the T cell population. Researchers continue to work on devising ways to mobilize anti-tumor Teff cells in order to better shape the immune response to tumors. Previously, James Allison and colleagues from Memorial Sloan-Ket...

A single sugar found responsible for an antibody's ability to treat inflammation

For years, researchers have struggled to understand how IVIG worked. It's ability to treat autoimmune diseases seemed to bean apparent contradiction. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is a complex mixture of IgG antibodies made from human plasma that contains the pooled antibodies from thousands of people, and is only FDA-approved to treat a few assorted conditions; nonetheless, practiti...

Antibody extends life of mice with breast cancer

A monoclonal antibody developed by researchers at the University at Buffalo has been shown to extend significantly the survival of mice with human breast-cancer tumors and to inhibit the cancer's spread to the lungs in the animals by more than 50 percent. The antibody, named JAA-F11, targets a particular disaccharide, an antigen known as TF-Ag, which aids the adhesion and spread of certain...

A key antibody, IgG, links cells' capture and disposal of germs

Scientists have found a new task managed by the antibody that's the workhorse of the human immune system: Inside cells, Immunoglobulin G (IgG) helps bring together the phagosomes that corral invading pathogens and the potent lysosomes that eventually kill off the germs. The research, by Axel Nohturfft at Harvard University and colleagues at Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the...

Monoclonal antibody reduces exacerbations in asthmatics

Patients with symptomatic moderate asthma who were treated with anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha, an anti-inflammatory monoclonal antibody, experienced significantly fewer disease exacerbations than individuals taking a placebo. This research appears in the first issue for October 2006 of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Soc...

Antibody signal may redirect inflammation to fuel cancer

As evidence mounts that the body's normally protective inflammation response can drive some precancerous tissues to become fully malignant, UCSF scientists report discovering an apparent trigger to this potentially deadly process. Typically, the "innate" immune system's Pac-Man-like white blood cells, or leukocytes, engulf and destroy invading microbes when receptors on their surface rece...

Antibody therapy prevents type 1 diabetes in mice

University of Pittsburgh investigators have successfully prevented the onset of type 1 diabetes in mice prone to developing the disease using an antibody against a receptor on the surface of immune T-cells. According to the investigators, these findings, which are being published in the January issue of the journal Diabetes, have significant implications for the prevention of type 1 diabetes. </p...

Newly discovered antibody may be body's natural defense against Alzheimer's

The newly found antibodies selectively target aggregates of beta amyloid prot...