Summaries of Must-Read Clinical Literature, Guidelines, and FDA Actions
Designing an Effective Hepatitis C Vaccine
Trends Microbiol; ePub 2018 Apr 24; Kinchen, et al
Broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies may hold the key to developing an effective vaccine against hepatitis C, suggests a recent review.
- While vaccines have been successfully developed to combat numerous viral infections, one has yet to be created against hepatitis C.
- The authors point out 2 reasons for the delay: The hepatitis C virus is genetically diverse, and the virus has the ability of evade the body’s immune system.
- Several broadly neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies (bNABs) are now available against the hepatitis C virus.
- These bNABs are capable of targeting conserved HCV epitopes and have been proven effective in animal studies.
Citation:
Kinchen VJ, Cox AL, Bailey JR. Can broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies lead to a hepatitis C virus vaccine? [Published online ahead of print April 24, 2018]. Trends Microbiol. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2018.04.002.
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