The human monoclonal antibody known as m102.4, which has proven
effective in protecting against the frequently fatal Hendra virus, has
now been shown in studies to protect against the closely related Nipah
virus -- the basis of the 2011 movie "Contagion" -- a highly infectious
and deadly agent that results in acute respiratory distress syndrome and
encephalitis, person-to-person transmission, and greater than 90
percent case fatality rates among humans. The results of the study,
conducted by a team of Federal and university scientists, will appear in
Science Translational Medicine online: “Therapeutic Treatment of Nipah
Virus Infection in Nonhuman Primates with a Neutralizing Human
Monoclonal Antibody." The full study will be available following the
release of the embargo at 2 p.m. June 25, 2014.
The collaborative research team members are from the Uniformed
Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), the University of
Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), the
National Institutes of Health (NIH’s) National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), and
the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH.
Nipah virus and the closely related Hendra virus are naturally found in
Pteropid fruit bats (flying foxes). They are considered emerging viruses
and are capable of causing severe illness and death in a variety of
domestic animals and humans.
In experiments
carried out in non-human primates at the GNL in Galveston, Texas, where
there is a high-containment facility for working with live Nipah virus,
the team of researchers, under the direction of Thomas W. Geisbert,
Ph.D., professor, in the Department of Microbiology, UTMB and study
corresponding author, demonstrated that administering a human monoclonal
antibody therapy after exposure to Nipah virus protected the animals
from disease.
“Previously, our team showed
that this same antibody therapy could protect nonhuman primates from a
deadly Hendra virus infection, but here we have shown for the very first
time, that not only does this antibody protect against Nipah virus
infection, but remarkably can do so even when given the therapy much
later after infection and when the animals show clinical signs of
disease. What this means is that as far as people are concerned these
latest findings strongly suggest that a real potential treatment for
Nipah virus infection is at hand,” said Christopher C. Broder, Ph.D.,
professor of Microbiology at USU and also study corresponding author.
It was earlier work at USU and NCI, supported by NIAID that isolated
and characterized the monoclonal antibody known as m102.4. The antibody
attacks a critical component of Nipah and Hendra viruses and blocks
their ability to infect cells. Antibodies – proteins found in blood or
other bodily fluids of vertebrates – are used by the immune system to
identify and neutralize viruses and bacteria.
“This recent success of the antibody therapy against Nipah virus
disease in a nonhuman primate is a key step towards its development as a
therapeutic for use in people,” according to Dr. Geisbert.
“There are no other effective therapeutic options for Nipah virus
infection,” according to Dr. Broder. “Indeed, because of data now
reported here, and from our previous work with this antibody in Hendra
virus experiments, there was sufficient interest for the Queensland
government in Australia to initiate a phase I clinical safety trial with
m102.4 that is set to commence later this year.”
Nipah virus and Hendra virus, members of the paramyxovirus family, are
highly infectious agents that emerged from flying foxes in the 1990s to
cause serious disease outbreaks in humans and livestock in Australia,
Malaysia, Singapore, Bangladesh and India.
“There are currently no licensed and approved vaccines or therapeutics
for prevention and treatment of disease caused by these viruses for
humans or livestock,” said Dr. Geisbert. “This human monoclonal antibody
is the first effective antiviral drug against Nipah virus and Hendra
virus that has a real potential for human therapeutic applications.”
The human monoclonal antibody, m102.4, is protected under issued and pending patents in many countries around the world.
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