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A fast way of isolating antibodies from people has been used to create a library of the immune proteins produced by someone inoculated with a nicotine-acting vaccine. Roger Beerli and his team at Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland, used lymphocytes from an individual who was enrolled in a clinical trial of the smokingcessation vaccine, and with their technique rapidly identified nicotine-specific antibodies1.
The work is the latest offering in a burgeoning field of therapeutics: monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies are derived from a single population of cells and bind to their target at a specific site. Last month, researchers reported that they had isolated functional antibodies from survivors of the 1918 influenza pandemic2, and in April, another team reported the rapid cloning of influenza antibodies from people who had recently been vaccinated against the disease3. Researchers hope the findings will eventually lead to 'passive immunity' treatments.
The market for monoclonal antibodies is the fastest-growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry. In 2007, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies brought in more than US$26 billion, most of which came from treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. That same year, 50 companies had anticancer antibodies in clinical...