New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

Maciamo

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From the BBC: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

"Scientists have engineered an antibody that attacks 99% of HIV strains and can prevent infection in primates.

It is built to attack three critical parts of the virus - making it harder for HIV to resist its effects.
...

The study, published in the journal Science, combines three such antibodies into an even more powerful "tri-specific antibody".

Dr Gary Nabel, the chief scientific officer at Sanofi and one of the report authors, told the BBC News website: "They are more potent and have greater breadth than any single naturally occurring antibody that's been discovered."

The best naturally occurring antibodies will target 90% of HIV strains.

"We're getting 99% coverage, and getting coverage at very low concentrations of the antibody," said Dr Nabel.

Experiments on 24 monkeys showed none of those given the tri-specific antibody developed an infection when they were later injected with the virus."
 
That's great news, not only for fighting HIV, but also for other viral infections including common cold. Just the matter of time now to finally have flu medicine. And I like this 3 pronged approach. For some time now I believe that we should attack pathogen with multiple drugs, medicinal cocktails, at the same time. It takes less medication and it doesn't leave much room for pathogen to mutate creating superbug, bugs getting immune to antibiotics. This philosophy should be used with pesticide and herbicide too. Less poison, but more potent and more targeted, also more environmentally friendly.
 
Indeed, great news.
 

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