Understanding Monoclonal Antibodies

What are monoclonal antibodies?

Monoclonal antibodies are proteins made by scientists in a lab that are meant to act like human antibodies. Antibodies are proteins in your immune system that are designed to recognize certain targets, which may be located on viruses or even cancer cells. Monoclonal antibodies attach themselves to these targets and work to help your body's immune system fight the infection. They are called “monoclonal” because these lab-created antibodies are clones (exact copies) of one antibody.

How are monoclonal antibodies used, and who can they help?

Monoclonal antibodies are used to treat or prevent a wide variety of health problems, including certain types of cancer, asthma, Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Monoclonal antibodies have also been used to treat or prevent infections such as Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). RSV usually causes mild cold-like symptoms in older kids and healthy adults, but can be very serious for young children and older people. Up to 80,000 kids under 5 years old are hospitalized with RSV in the United States every year.

Christine McKenna’s son, Matthew, was born with a birth defect that damaged his lungs, making illnesses that can affect breathing, such as RSV, especially dangerous for him. He started monoclonal antibodies to prevent RSV at 4 months old on his pediatrician’s recommendation.

McKenna said she works in healthcare, yet she still didn’t know monoclonal antibodies could be used for preventing RSV before Matthew’s pediatrician told her. “It was like a gift to us because we were very concerned about RSV, given his condition,” she said.

Now 5 months old, Matthew just received his second round of treatment, and McKenna is grateful for the protection it provides.

Monoclonal antibodies can be helpful for boosting the immune systems of sick people. For example, certain types of cancer can be treated with monoclonal antibodies because they target and help destroy cancer cells.

They can also be used to treat autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, which happen when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue. Monoclonal antibodies target proteins that play a role in this destruction.

Recently, a large study spanning 11 countries found that monoclonal antibodies may protect people from HIV infection.

For some, monoclonal antibodies may be the only option for preventing illness. This includes people who are allergic to vaccines and people whose immune systems don’t react strongly enough after getting vaccinated.

How do monoclonal antibodies help with Covid-19?

Because monoclonal antibodies are used to target areas on the virus that causes Covid-19 (called SARS-Co-V-2) that changes over time, monoclonal antibody treatments also have to evolve to work well.

As of now, no monoclonal antibodies are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat or prevent Covid because they don’t offer enough protection against current variants. However, research on future monoclonal antibodies is being done since there is such a large number of people who could benefit from them.