Applications In Therapeutics

By Author: Paul Kerr
Total Articles: 1
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The secret lies in the fact that antibodies can create repositories of antibodies, separate a specific species and render it safe and effective. While efforts are on to make this process even more effective, the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases like AIDs and Cancer continue to face challenges. Knowledge of the full range of antibodies can gradually help overcome this situation.
Antibodies find successful application in therapeutics. Vaccinations derived from antibody sequencing help prevent and protect from many diseases, although they are yet to help an existing disease. Immunized animals and human beings develop antibodies that can then be isolated and used in treating and preventing diseases. This type of therapy is successful for infectious diseases. There is active research in these areas.

Two things present challenges while developing antibody therapeutics in clinical trials:

Hybridoma technology used for immortalizing repositories of cells that help with monoclonal antibody sequencing when screened with an antigen

Molecular biology techniques that improve antibody properties

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... Monoclonal antibodies are presently being used in treating many diseases related to immune disorders and cancer. Of these, the only anti-infective monoclonal antibody approved for marketing is “Palivizumab”.

While vaccines related to some diseases like the papilloma virus have been successful, those being researched for AIDS and Cancers are yet to be fruitful. This is because vaccinations cannot protect against diseases like AIDs and Cancers. The reason why certain people are immune and others are not is yet to be understood through research which aims to:

Find the key factors that influence success and failure
Overcome existing obstacles
Use technology to design better therapeutics and vaccines
Make patient-specific treatment more effective
Design radical new treatments

Recent progress in developing antibody-based therapeutics and vaccines has resulted in more sequenced monoclonal antibodies being employed in clinical studies. The success of these antibodies can be attributed to the use of advanced technology keeping safety, efficacy and quality in view so that they may be approved by the FDA.

The application of antibodies in therapeutics is relatively safe because of their specificity. Toxicity is a possibility both when the antibody binds itself to targeted as well as non-targeted tissues. One example of this is Trastuzumab, which causes cardio-toxicity when the antibody binds itself to the intended tissue. This can lead to critical illnesses or complications due to infections in study volunteers.

Some outstanding applications of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies are:

A high rate of success in treating diseases like non-Hodgkin lymphoma, HER-2 positive early breast cancer when used in conjunction with chemotherapy
Genomic mining and proteomic discovery resulting in a range of therapeutic drugs
Anti-angio-genic therapy to control tumor growth in cancer along with chemotherapy and as standalone therapy for macular degeneration

Ongoing research and development seeks to focus on developing therapies that can discover and focus on new targets and bring them to the stage where they can undergo Phase 1 clinical trials before being available commercially.

Fusion Antibodies is a pioneer in research equipments for Monoclonal Antibody Sequencing. Ever since its inception, Fusion Antibodies has extensive technical expertise in aiding the research and development of Antibody Sequencing.