Major advance in human antibody therapy against deadly Nipah virus.Byline: ANI Washington, Oct 31 (ANI): A novel antibody treatment may spell the end of the deadly Nipah virus Nip·ah virus n. A single-stranded RNA virus that is transmitted from animals and causes fever and myalgias that can progress to encephalitis in humans. and the related Hendra virus Hen·dra virus n. A paramyxovirus that causes encephalitis in humans and is transmitted from animals. Hendra virus the cause of a highly fatal respiratory virus disease of horses. , according to a new study. Nipah and Hendra viruses are found in Pteropid fruit bats (flying foxes) and are characterized by their recent emergence as agents capable of causing illness and death in domestic animals and humans. The research team from Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences The university currently has two mottos: "Learning to Care For Those In Harm's Way" and "Providing Good Medicine In Bad Places." USU School of Medicine With an enrollment of approximately 167 students per class, USU School of Medicine is located in Bethesda, Maryland on the (USU USU Usually USU Utah State University (Logan, UT) USU Uniformed Services University USU Ural State University (Ekatherinburg, Russia) USU Universidade Santa Úrsula ), Australian Animal Health Laboratory The Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, Victoria, Australia is a high security laboratory, run by the CSIRO for exotic animal disease diagnosis and research. It opened in 1985 costing $150 million. and National Cancer Institute have developed a human monoclonal antibody, m102.4, which could attack a critical component of both the Nipah and Hendra viruses. During the study carried out in ferrets, Dr Christopher C. Broder, professor of microbiology at USU, and Dr Katharine Bossart, a USU alumna, now an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. It is an American medical school located in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. demonstrated that giving an anti-virus human monoclonal antibody therapy Monoclonal antibody therapy is the use of monoclonal antibodies (or Mab) to specifically target cells. The main objective is stimulating the patient's immune system to attack the malignant tumor cells and the prevention of tumor growth by blocking specific cell receptors. after exposure to Nipah virus protected the animals from disease. "These findings are extremely encouraging and clearly suggest the potential that a treatment for Hendra virus infection in a similar manner should be possible, given the very strong cross-reactive activity this antibody has against Hendra virus," said Dr Deborah Middleton, D.V.M, who directed the animal experiments at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory. "We now have good evidence that this antibody could save human lives and the insights offered about how it works also could potentially provide a starting point to developing tools for targeting other diseases," said study co-author Dr Dimiter S. Dimitrov, senior biomedical research scientist at the National Cancer Institute. "We hope this demonstration of anti-viral activity will foster some immediate activities to facilitate further development for future use in humans," said Dr. Bossart. "There are currently no licensed and approved vaccines or therapeutics for prevention and treatment of disease caused by these viruses for humans or livestock," said Dr. Broder. The expert added: "This fully-human monoclonal antibody is the first antiviral agent against the Nipah and Hendra viruses that has a genuine potential for human therapeutic use." (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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