Normally, antibodies are protective proteins produced by our immune system to fight bacteria or viruses. Its strength comes from its specificity: When you get sick, your immune system’s B cells undergo an exquisitely precise process of accelerated evolution, quickly optimizing antibodies that bind precisely to whatever is causing you discomfort, without adhering to none of the cells in your body. Antibodies can hinder a marauding germ from functioning or mark it for destruction by other parts of the immune system, making antibodies a critical defense against disease in our immune arsenal.
This precise targeting ability also means they are an attractive tool for use in biology or medicine: they can be used to attack anything from an infection to cancer. After you’ve identified a particular protein or process that goes wrong in a disease, much of the time and work spent developing a drug is actually spent finding drugs that affect the process you identified, and that affect it as little as possible. to other aspects. This should provide the maximum effect of the treatment, with the minimum of side effects. So, since our immune system has already figured out how to do this, scientists have speculated about the possibility of using antibodies in clinical applications.
The first antibody approved for medical use was muromonab-CD3 in 1986, designed (ironically) to suppress the immune system and prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. There are now hundreds of antibodies used for everything from cancer treatment to surprisingly everyday things: pregnancy tests and rapid Covid tests, for example, rely on antibodies.
Today, the latest wave of antibody applications is chasing a bigger prize: the aging process itself. This is because the biology of aging makes us susceptible to a wide range of different problems, from diseases such as cancer and dementia to frailty, incontinence and gray hair. Slowing down this process could keep us all healthier for longer, and part of that is in the crosshairs of antibodies.
In 2021, a research group used antibodies to guide a deadly drug to aged, “senescent” cells, the removal of which has been shown to cause mice to live longer, healthier lives. Another 2023 paper used antibodies carrying subtly different drugs to rejuvenate skin of old mice. An antibody targeting a type of age-related protein modification for cleanup Made genetically modified mice live longer. And, in March 2024, another group reported that antibodies Targets defective bone marrow cells Improved response to a vaccine against the (very misnamed) Friend virus in middle-aged mice. It will be a beautiful symmetry that the same molecules that our body uses to fight disease can be reused to improve this capacity in old age. We also know that these elderly bone marrow cells can increase the risk of blood cancer and heart diseaseso more testing could uncover broader benefits.
These are all fascinating proofs of principle, and it would be worth it to have better skin and immunity with age, but can antibodies slow aging and make mice, or humans, live longer? In July 2024, scientists showed that antibodies targeting a protein called IL-11 could reduce inflammation in mice and extend their lifespan by 25 percent; best anti-aging drugs that we know, like rapamycin. Even better, anti-IL-11 antibodies are already in human trials, with (very) preliminary results indicating that they are safe.
Greg Winter, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for his work on the isolation and mass production of specific antibodies, said at a conference in 2020: “I’m old now and I have to take several blood pressure pills. “I wish I could get a shot once a month or once every six months and forget about all those combinations of different pills.” The year your dream comes true could be 2025.