The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7456 p699
16 June 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Antibody treatment for bird flu on horizon

Human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with neutralising activity against H5N1 avian influenza virus might provide future prevention or an adjunctive treatment against a human outbreak, research published online suggests (PLoS Medicine, 29 May 2007).

Scientists used blood samples from Vietnamese adults who had survived infection with H5N1 virus to create B cell clones that secrete fully human mAbs with neutralising activity against the virus.

Tested on mice challenged with the human version of H5N1 virus, four human mAbs found to have neutralising activity in vitro had prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy. “Ultimately,” the authors write, “we hope that these mAbs, and others like them, could constitute a cocktail of cross-reactive, neutralising antibodies that could be employed as adjunctive treatment of H5N1 influenza.”