Antibodies

Researchers studying the AIDS virus report in the journal Nature that it could remain infectious even when surrounded by neutralizing antibodies that would normally destroy it. A team at Virginia Commonwealth University examined follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) in the lymph nodes where large amounts of HIV, the AIDS virus, congregate. Although most viruses are inactivated when they are trapped by the dendritic cells, clearing the way for the patient to recover from infection, they found that HIV remains infectious.

When you pop a pill in the future, don't expect old-fashioned results. Thanks to new advances in the lab and a deeper understanding of the human body, drugs are becoming highly personalized and precisely targeted. And the hope is they'll also be more effective. A new appreciation of our individual differences could spell the end of one-size-fits-all medicine. Our genes, lifestyles, environmental influences and even the bacteria in our guts work together to make us the people we are. All of these factors - and more - dictate how we respond to pills, tablets and capsules.

When you pop a pill in the future, don't expect old-fashioned results. Thanks to new advances in the lab and a deeper understanding of the human body, drugs are becoming highly personalized and precisely targeted. And the hope is they'll also be more effective. A new appreciation of our individual differences could spell the end of one-size-fits-all medicine. Our genes, lifestyles, environmental influences and even the bacteria in our guts work together to make us the people we are. All of these factors - and more - dictate how we respond to pills, tablets and capsules.

Researchers at San Diego's Scripps Research Institute have developed what they say could be the first effective treatment for cocaine overdoses. Their technique, which uses synthetically produced antibodies to bind cocaine and remove it from circulation, has so far been tried only in mice, but the team hopes to start human trials soon -- if they can produce enough of the antibodies in an economically viable manner. Immunologists Jennifer B. Treweek and Kim D. Janda of Scripps have in the past been working on so-called active vaccine against cocaine and nicotine.

Researchers Friday claimed a breakthrough in the development of disease-fighting human monoclonal antibodies. Scientists in Schering-Plough Corp.'s Laboratory for Immunological Research in Dardilly, France, said they were able, for the first time, to grow the cells that produce human antibodies in a laboratory culture.

Antibodies produced by genetically engineered plants seem to work just as well as those naturally produced by the body, researchers reported. The antibodies, nicknamed "plantibodies," worked against the herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2), which causes genital herpes, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Dr.

A vaccine that blocks cocaine from reaching the brain could hold the promise of a new treatment for addicts, according to scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. George Koob and his colleagues found they could use a chemical structurally similar to cocaine to create antibodies against the drug. These antibodies stopped the drug from moving into the brain--at least in rats, Koob's group reported in Nature.

Researchers at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla have developed a new, inexpensive technique for producing specialized antibodies that promises to open up a whole new area of medicine, including cancer therapy, and to greatly expand medical diagnostics. The technique also could be used to give agricultural crops a functioning "immune system" that would protect them against insects, funguses and other pathogens and to create new plants that could be used to clean up polluted waterways and soil.

Stanford researchers have reported what appears to be the first significant use of monoclonal antibodies to help transplant tissues in animals. Transplant recipients often have trouble incorporating foreign tissues into their bodies, and doctors have had to rely on powerful and often dangerous drugs to keep such patients from rejecting the transplants. If the Stanford discovery eventually helps humans overcome the rejection problem, it would make transplants much safer.

Scientists believe they may have finally discovered a major cause of colic in breast-fed babies. St. Louis researchers said Tuesday that cow antibodies in human breast milk may be the cause of the dreaded--but usually not serious--condition.

Physicist Rosalyn S. Yalow, who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of a medical diagnostic test that revolutionized patient care and led to a new understanding of diabetes and a host of other diseases, died May 30 in the Bronx, N.Y. She was 89. No cause of death was announced. Although her work in medical diagnostics was seminal, she was perhaps equally well known for her temerity in entering a field that had previously been dominated by men and for her persistence in pursuing her goals in the face of opposition from the establishment and the opposite sex. She was only the second woman to win the Nobel in medicine and only the sixth to win a Nobel in any science.

Construction is set to begin this month on a $95-million development in Santa Monica where a local biotech company will manufacture antibodies to fight cancer. The project, which received city approval this week, allows a consolidation and expansion of operations for Agensys Inc. The Santa Monica firm researches and develops new cancer therapies, some of which are in clinical trials. Agensys will consolidate its office, research, laboratory and manufacturing space in the development at 1800 Stewart St. on land leased from the city.

An effective vaccine against the AIDS virus may have moved one step closer to reality, researchers said Thursday. Federal researchers have identified a pair of naturally occurring antibodies that are able to kill more than 90% of all strains of the AIDS virus, a finding they say could lead to the development of new treatments for HIV infections and to the production of the first successful vaccine against the virus. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is notoriously mutable, changing the composition of proteins on its surface with ease to escape pressure from the immune system.

Three years after the U.S. blood-banking industry recommended against transfusing plasma from female donors because of a potentially life-threatening antibody reaction, researchers have found that plasma from women may actually be better, not worse, for heart surgery patients. In a study of patients treated before the new guidelines were implemented, those receiving plasma from women were only half as likely to suffer lung complications from the surgery and were 45% less likely to be hospitalized or die in the 10 days after surgery, a Duke University Medical Center team reported.

AIDS antibodies: A Sept. 4 article and headline in Section A about the discovery of broadly neutralizing antibodies against the AIDS virus said the antibodies could block progression of an infection to AIDS. They cannot. Rather, researchers hope that similar antibodies stimulated by a vaccine could prevent a person from becoming infected in the first place.

After 15 years of futile search for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease. They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one. A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports in Friday's journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.

A certain type of antibody in the blood can apparently increase the risk of stroke, researchers from the University of Maryland Medical Center reported last week at an American Heart Assn. meeting. In a study at 16 medical centers, they found that the so-called anticardiolipin antibodies were more than twice as likely to be found in stroke patients as in people hospitalized for other medical conditions.

Researchers at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego have developed a powerful new technique that will allow scientists to identify and isolate specialized antibodies, especially human antibodies, for medical and other uses far more quickly and inexpensively than was previously possible.

There are various types of food-allergy tests, but beware: They're not all equally accurate. Some, in fact, can be very misleading. By far the best are food challenge tests, in which a person is fed carefully regulated amounts of food, under close supervision, and the amounts are gradually increased. Other tests examine blood or skin reactions. These are more common -- and also less reliable.

Pre-eclampsia, a potentially deadly disorder that strikes about 5% of pregnant women, may be an autoimmune disease, Texas researchers reported Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. The team injected mice with antibodies isolated from women with the disorder, and the mice showed symptoms of the problem, including dangerously high blood pressure, protein in the urine and placental abnormalities. The effects of the antibodies could be blocked with the drug losartan, but the medication cannot be used in pregnant women because it can harm a fetus.