Monoclonal antibodies come of age, and passive immunity treatments come around

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 month 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

Monoclonal antibodies, antibodies that are made from a single cell line and that bind to a specific part of a specific antigen, are much more precise than polyclonal antibodies, but they are more expensive and difficult to make. However, a new system of isolating antibodies from human patients has been used to create a library of immune proteins. So far, things seem to be going well. This could open the door for what researchers are calling "passive immunity."

"Roger Beerli and his team at Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland, used lymphocytes from an individual who was enrolled in a clinical trial of the smoking-cessation vaccine, and with their technique rapidly identified nicotine-specific antibodies."

The process does have its limits. These antibodies can only be made against diseases that have either approved vaccines or--in the case of the 1918 flu epidemic--survivors.

Keywords: addiction nicotine vaccines antibody production antibodies protein libraries Monoclonal antibodies