ProSci’s top news picks for September 2016 include a paper on a novel monoclonal antibody against parenchymal amyloid-beta for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Dementia, a scientist using CRISPR for gene editing of embryos, and an update on the discussion of antibody validation.
A Monoclonal Antibody Against Amyloid-Beta Plaques Strengthens the Amyloid Hypothesis
Aducanumab is a novel monoclonal antibody that has been designed to target the amyloid-beta plaques closely associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Specifically, Aducanumab is a murine IgG2a/κ chimeric analogue capable of binding parenchymal amyloid-beta plaques built up in brain tissue, and was shown to remove upwards of 50% of plaques. Treatment of patients with mild cases of Alzheimer’s dementia with monthly intravenous infusions of Aducanumab showed a slowing of clinical decline on several scales measuring dementia’s severity, lending support to the amyloid hypothesis.
Embryonic Research Using CRISPR is Taking Place in Sweden
For the last several years, human embryonic research in vitro has been limited due to ethical concerns, but Swedish scientist Fredrik Lanner has been using CRISPR/Cas9 to begin studying the earliest stages of human development. The full story published by NPR discusses how Lanner’s work using CRISPR walks along the fine line between the ethics of studying the human embryo and the scientific curiosity. Lanner’s latest paper on X-chromosome inactivation using this system was published in early August, and can be seen here.
Antibody Validation May Be Taking a Step Toward Product Ranking
Antibody development companies have been working to establish a standard of validation to potentially resolve some issues with reproducibility. This article takes a look at a meeting that was held amongst antibody developers, where potential resolutions were discussed. One idea is to rank antibodies according to their performance in specific applications, which is paramount to the experiment’s success. This would be an extremely work intensive process to perform for many companies, but it could provide a great benefit to researchers, prevent poor data from impacting the results and reproducibility of their work.
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