Doctors may someday trick the immune system to fight off an illness by pumping plastic antibodies into the bloodstream.
Antibodies are proteins the body naturally produces to fight off infections. But a weakened immune system can interfere with its ability to recognize pathogens and make it difficult to fight off undetected infections.
Fortunately, a group of researchers at the University of California at Irvine have successfully tested the idea of using artificial antibodies to fortify the body’s natural defenses. The team infected two sets of mice by giving them a lethal dose of bee venom and then followed up by injecting one group with an injection of specially designed antibodies. And sure enough, the mice with the plastic antibodies were more likely to live.
In fact, there was a 60 percent survival rate in the mice that were given plastic antibodies. And if the designer antibodies could be used in humans, it could potentially treat a slew of allergies and infections, reports New Scientist.
The discovery, they suggest in a report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, is an advance toward medical use of simple plastic particles custom tailored to fight an array of troublesome “antigens.” Those antigens include everything from disease-causing viruses and bacteria to the troublesome proteins that cause allergic reactions to plant pollen, house dust, certain foods, poison ivy, bee stings and other substances.
As promising as the method seems, there are some serious obstacles. The antibodies are made to physically mimic real antibodies, so the immune system can recognize it and fight off infections. It’s unclear how effective plastic antibodies will be, since they can’t communicate like the real thing.
via New Scientist
Photo via Eurekalert
