Page 88 - AWSAR 2.0

64 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Recombinant Therapeutic Antibodies – Ek Kadam Swasthya Ki Aur!
Dr Vaishali Verma*
Email: vplondhe84@gmail.com
In the early 1890s, Emil von Behring successfully demonstrated that diseased animals could be treated with the cell-free
blood of animals who recovered from the same disease. He later named this healing component of the blood as ‘antibodies’ that formed the basis for the modern-day treatment of infections such as diphtheria, tetanus, rabies, snakebites, etc. For this revolutionary work, he was regarded as the founder of the serum therapy and awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901. The seminal work of Behring was taken forward by Paul Ehrlich, who theorized that the blood contained a large number of antibodies, which could block the action of foreign substances encountered by the body and cured diseases. Due to their exquisite functions, the antibody molecules
are one of the most well-studied molecules in biology. Their shape closely resembles the Y alphabet of the English language. The human body contains billions of different Y-shaped antibodies that, in principle, can bind to almost any target. The two arms of the Y-shaped antibody structure bind specifically to the infection-causing agents and lead to their clearance, thus protecting us from the infections caused by viruses, bacteria, etc.
Over the past few decades, apart from the use of antibody-containing serum derived from the animals immunized with infection- causing agents, several technologies have become available to produce recombinant therapeutic antibodies. The advent of hybridoma technology for mouse monoclonal antibody production marked the beginning
* Dr Vaishali Verma, Post Doctoral Fellow from University of Delhi (South Campus), Delhi, is pursuing her research on “Development of Recombinant Therapeutic Antibodies against Different Targets”. Her popular science story entitled “Recombinant Therapeutic Antibodies – Ek Kadam Swasthya Ki Aur!” has been selected for AWSAR Award.