Monoclonal Antibodies

Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-produced molecules designed to act as replacement antibodies that can restore, strengthen or imitate the attack on harmful cells by the immune system. Within the last few months, researchers have proposed that injecting these antibodies into patients infected with Coronavirus could help treat them. They are engineered to bind to antigens that are usually more numerous than healthy cells on the surface of cancer cells. The process of making monoclonal antibodies is incredibly interesting and can be broken down into a few steps. First, a lab animal is immunized with whatever agent is being studied (antigen X). This is done to activate the proliferation of certain B cells. Now, these B cells are able to make antigen-X specific antibodies (but unfortunately, as we know, these cells die after a few generations). Next, we introduce myeloma cells which divide and an abnormal indefinite rate and are fused with the isolated B cells. The result of mixing the myeloma and B cells is a product called a hybridoma. These cells have critical abilities including the supplying of genes for antibody production and the cellular machinery for making proliferating antibodies (Parray et al., 2020).

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump was infected with COVID-19 and was given REGN-COV2 which was obtained from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. This experimental drug is being referred to as an “antibody cocktail” that consists of two monoclonal antibodies (REGN10933 and REGN10987) (Matthews, 2020). As President Trump was receiving his treatment, it flooded the news that his COVID-19 treatment was developed using cells that were originally drawn from fetal tissue. According to ScienceMag.org, the antibodies used in President Trump’s treatment were a long-lived line of cells that originated from fetal kidneys from around 1972. Essentially, researchers took antibody-producing B-cells from people who were already sick, cloned the sequences of antibodies from individual B-cells, and then extended them to enormous amounts, to the point that in the laboratory you have vast quantities of these antibodies in a purified form.

As we expect, this treatment is still in the very early stages of development so some long-term effects remain unknown for now. What was know now is that REGN-COV2 works by binding to the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the virus’s spike protein. Doing this reduces the ability of the virus to escape treatment (Matthews, 2020). His own immune system will not have the ability to produce these antibodies on its own due to its unnatural nature and synthetic creation. The purpose of the drug is to slow the progression, speed up the recovery, and decrease the transmission of the Coronavirus. I’ve mentioned this in past blogs but its crazy to consider the fact that we are living through history right now. This is something our world hasn’t experienced in decades and we all have a front row seat to ground-making moments in our history. I’m excited to follow the progression of the experimental REGN-COV2 coronavirus treatment and am very curious if the creation of monoclonal antibodies will be the answer to all of this.