In hopes of more fully tapping the libraries' potential, a group of Scripps Research Institute scientists, led by Scripps Research President Richard A. Lerner, M.D., has for the first time developed a new screening technique that enables antibody screening against equally massive libraries of targets.

More drafts usually mean a better product and so it also seems to go with the human immune system. As B cells develop, genes rearrange to allow their antibodies to recognize different foreign invaders or pathogens. But sometimes antibodies are created that recognize and attack the body’s own cells.

New Analysis by Applied Data Research Examines Clinical Developments and Assesses Healthcare Impact

Southwestern Medical Center researchers, collaborating with colleagues in Germany, have for the first time identified antibodies associated with transplant rejection of otherwise healthy kidneys.

The use of monoclonal IgG antibodies attached to toxins or radioactive substances for treating and imaging cancer is currently limited by the ability of IgG to remain in the blood for a long time because this decreases the tumor-to-background contrast and increases normal tissue toxicity.

Surgeons may have a new patient safety tool to stop moderate surgical bleeding without some of the concerns associated with the current standard blood-clotting treatment.

In order for the B cells of the immune system to identify and fight disease pathogens, they produce a protein called activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID). Once a B cell is activated by the presence of a disease pathogen, it begins to make AID which directs and strengthens the B cells’ response to the infection by mutating the antibodies produced by the B cells.

The respiratory form of tularemia, a potentially serious bacterial disease, is a significant public health concern because it is highly infectious, it has a high mortality rate if untreated, and it could be introduced into a population in an intentional act of bioterror. Though much research is focused on developing drugs and vaccines targeted to the bacterium that causes tularemia, Francisella tularensis, little is known about the role that antibodies play in protecting against infection.

Scientists have provided new details about how proteins used to destroy bacteria and viruses may help treat Alzheimer's disease. Gunnar K. Gouras, associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, and colleagues provide new insights into how these proteins, called antibodies, reduce the main hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease and raise hopes for a vaccine against the disease.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, report using antibodies derived from immune cells from recent human survivors of H5N1 avian influenza to successfully treat H5N1-infected mice as well as protect them from an otherwise lethal dose of the virus.

Proteins, which form much of the molecular machinery required for life, are the targets of most drug molecules. One third of all proteins are membrane proteins - embedded within the cell's fatty outer layer. While scientists can easily study the other two-thirds using such tools as antibodies, they have not had such methods to investigate the membrane-embedded portions of proteins.

By mimicking Nature's way of distinguishing one type of cell from another, University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists now report they can more effectively seek out and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.