Scientists have engineered an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates.<\/p>\n
It is built to attack three critical parts of the virus – making it harder for HIV to resist its effects.<\/p>\n
The work is a collaboration between the US National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi.<\/p>\n
The International Aids Society said it was an “exciting breakthrough”. Human trials will start in 2018 to see if it can prevent or treat infection.<\/p>\n
Our bodies struggle to fight HIV because of the virus’ incredible ability to mutate and change its appearance.<\/p>\n
There varieties of HIV – or strains – in a single patient are comparable to those of influenza\u00a0during a worldwide flu season.<\/p>\n
So the immune system finds itself in a fight against an insurmountable number of strains of HIV.<\/p>\n
Super-antibodies<\/strong><\/p>\n But after years of infection, a small number of patients develop powerful weapons called “broadly neutralising antibodies” that attack something fundamental to HIV and can kill large swathes of HIV strains.<\/p>\n Researchers have been trying to use broadly neutralising antibodies as a way to treat HIV, or prevent infection in the first place.<\/p>\n The study,\u00a0published in the journal Science, combines three such antibodies into an even more powerful “tri-specific antibody”.<\/p>\n Dr Gary Nabel, the chief scientific officer at Sanofi and one of the report authors, told the BBC News website: “They are more potent and have greater breadth than any single naturally occurring antibody that’s been discovered.”<\/p>\n The best naturally occurring antibodies will target 90% of HIV strains.<\/p>\n “We’re getting 99% coverage, and getting coverage at very low concentrations of the antibody,” said Dr Nabel.<\/p>\n Experiments on 24 monkeys showed none of those given the tri-specific antibody developed an infection when they were later injected with the virus.<\/p>\n Dr Nabel said: “It was quite an impressive degree of protection.”<\/p>\n The work included scientists at Harvard Medical School, The Scripps Research Institute, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n ‘Exciting’<\/strong><\/p>\n Clinical trials to test the antibody in people will start next year.<\/p>\n Prof Linda-Gail Bekker, the president of the International Aids Society, told the BBC: “This paper reports an exciting breakthrough.<\/p>\n “These super-engineered antibodies seem to go beyond the natural and could have more applications than we have imagined to date.<\/p>\n “It’s early days yet, and as a scientist I look forward to seeing the first trials get off the ground in 2018.<\/p>\n “As a doctor in Africa, I feel the urgency to confirm these findings in humans as soon as possible.”<\/p>\n Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it was an intriguing approach.<\/p>\n He added: “Combinations of antibodies that each bind to a distinct site on HIV may best overcome the defences of the virus in the effort to achieve effective antibody-based treatment and prevention.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists have engineered an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates. It is built to attack three critical parts of the virus – making it harder for HIV to resist its effects. The work is a collaboration between the US National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[9615,3],"class_list":["post-355396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-antibody","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=355396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=355396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}