Therapeutic Antibodies

Over 2000 years ago in China, antibodies elicited by early forms of vaccination likely played a major role in the protection of the population from infectious agents. Vac- nation has been further developed in Europe and described by Edward Jenner in the late-eighteenth century, then successfully implemented worldwide. The idea to use theactiveingredientinthebloodofvaccinated(orimmunized)animalsorhumansfor the treatment of diseases came a century later. It was made possible by a series of discoveries,suchastherealizationthattheserumfromanimalsimmunizedwithtoxins, for example, diphtheria toxin or viruses, is an effective therapeutic against the disease causedbythesameagentinhumans. Inthe1880s,vonBehringdevelopedanantitoxin (anti-body) that did not kill the bacteria but neutralized the bacterial toxin. The first Nobel Prize in Medicine (1901) was given to him for the discovery of the serum therapy. Acenturylater,22monoclonalantibodies(mAbs)areapprovedbytheUnited States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for clinical use, and hundreds are in clinicaltrialsforthetreatmentofvariousdiseasesincludingcancers,immunedisorders, and infections. The revenues from the top-five therapeutic antibodies reached $11. 7 billion in 2006, and major pharmaceutical companies raced to acquire antibody biotech companies with a recent example of MedImmune, Inc. , which was acquired for $15. 6 billion by AstraZeneca in 2007. This explosion of research and development in the field of therapeutic antibodies prompted the publication of the MiMB volume Therapeutic Antibodies: Methods and Protocols. The book’s major goal is to present a set of protocols useful for researchers discoveringanddevelopingtherapeuticantibodies. Currentadvancesandfuturetrends in the antibody therapeutics are analyzed in thelead-in review article.