Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has a new candidate for its treatment. Nasal anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody (MAb) reduced microglia activation in the brain of mice without its effect being dependent on the β-amyloid (Aβ) deposits characteristic of this neurodegenerative disorder. “We have done many basic studies in the laboratory on microglia. Microglia activation occurs in many neurologic diseases. One of them is multiple sclerosis (MS). And it also occurs in AD,” senior author Howard Weiner told BioWorld.

Twist Bioscience Corp. has established a drug discovery agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to discover and develop novel antibodies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Ceramedix Holding LLC has been awarded a phase IIB Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant valued at approximately US$3 million by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to support the evaluation of the non-clinical pharmacology of its lead drug candidate. The anti-ceramide antibody is in development through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a potential therapeutic to mitigate and/or treat illness due to radiation exposure.

Ibio Inc. has announced promising in vivo data for three immuno-oncology candidates, anti-EGFRvIII, CCR8 and a bispecific TROP-2 x CD3, advancing these programs to clinical candidate selection stage.

Although huge strides have been made with antiretroviral therapy (ART) and prevention since HIV was first reported 42 years ago, there is still not an effective preventive vaccine or a scalable cure for those living with HIV. But broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) look to be a further step down the pathway to a cure, speakers said during the International AIDS Society meeting held July 23 to 26 in Brisbane, Australia.

Although huge strides have been made with antiretroviral therapy (ART) and prevention since HIV was first reported 42 years ago, there is still not an effective preventive vaccine or a scalable cure for those living with HIV. But broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) look to be a further step down the pathway to a cure, speakers said during the International AIDS Society meeting held July 23 to 26 in Brisbane, Australia.

The family of 32 known RNA alphaviruses are present globally, are transmitted by mosquitos, and can cause human disease most commonly arthritogenic or encephalitic in presentation, the latter of which has a fatality rate as high as 35% to 75% depending on host co-morbidities. Previous studies have demonstrated antibody-mediated protection against specific types of alphavirus infections, but broad-spectrum protection against multiple alphavirus has only been reported recently. Even more, the vaccine-mediated elicitation of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) has yet to be demonstrated until now.

A cluster of deaths in 1993 in the southwestern U.S. that were characterized by an acute respiratory failure and shock were determined to be due to hantaviruses, which are RNA zoonotic viruses typically transmitted by a rodent vector. Given a fatality rate ranging from 15% to 40% and capacity to potentially spread through human-to-human contact, it is possible that the public health risks posed by these agents have been underestimated.

Albatroz Therapeutics Pte Ltd. has secured $3 million in funding to accelerate the development of therapeutic antibodies against a novel target that degrades the extracellular matrix, a key contributor to cancer and arthritis.

Two neutralizing monoclonal antibodies isolated from volunteers vaccinated against the yellow fever virus controlled the viremia and prevented severe disease and death in hamsters and primates.