As co-leaders of an international collaboration, scientists at Scripps Research have discovered that tethering four antibodies together may be an effective strategy for neutralizing all types of influenza virus known to infect humans.
As co-leaders of an international collaboration, scientists at Scripps Research have discovered that tethering four antibodies together may be an effective strategy for neutralizing all types of influenza virus known to infect humans.
The research, published recently in Science, suggests this strategy could lead to influenza prevention tools with the strength and potency to last throughout the flu season, even as the virus mutates rapidly.
“We don’t have a vaccine yet that protects against all of the two main types of influenza (A and B). The key to this study is the engineering of a multidomain antibody that is cross-neutralizing to influenza A and B,” says Ian Wilson, DPhil, Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at Scripps Research, and Chair of the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
Tethering together antibodies is not a new concept, but this is the first time four antibodies have been tethered together and tried against influenza.
Continue reading at Scripps Research Institute.
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