To treat viral diseases that have no working vaccine, a group of researchers have engineered immune cells to spit out specific antibodies that can fight off a host of infections, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and HIV (Sci. Immunol. 2019, DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.aax0644).
Engineering these immune cells, called B cells, has been no small feat, say scientists who spoke to C&EN. B cells naturally produce the diverse array of antibodies that make up the front lines of the immune system by randomly mixing and matching different antibody genes. Creating a high-yield system that overrides that natural programming so that the cell reliably produces a specific antibody and not one that is mixed has been a challenge, says Richard James, who works on B cell engineering at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, but who was not involved in the paper. “They solved one of the key problems,” James says.
