Promises of Monoclonal antibody technology

Subject : Science and technology

Section: Biotechnology

Concept :

WHO has said that the technologies like Monoclonal antibody promises better disease prevention and control in Africa.
They are used to address different kinds of diseases, not just infections.

Monoclonal Antibody

They are Lab-made copies of B cells that mimic the body’s immune system.
The aim is to enable the production of proteins that are very specific to the foreign bodies called antigens.
They’re called monoclonal because they are produced by single clone of the B cells. So, you can have the exact copies of the same protein produced many times over and this way they are called Mab.
MAb can be produced outside the body, but you have to focus on the type since what is produced in our bodies are of different types, hundreds of them.
Whatever infection you have, there is an antibody produced in the body, but if we are producing it from outside, it has to be specific.
MAb are used to address different kinds of diseases, not just infections.

For Example – Cancer Treatment:

Cancer is not infection, but you can use monoclonal antibodies against it.
To treat cancer, the standard method is chemotherapy — the use of drugs. But those drugs are usually cytotoxic. They kill everything — both the normal cells and the cancer cells.
Sometimes, we give radiation; even radiation cannot choose which cells to kill.
But MAb can target specific problems and attack those cells.
Autoimmune diseases are not infections, but you can use Mab.
MAb can be used against infections like malaria or others as they are made to target anything that is interpreted as outside.
For instance, Mali was chosen for clinical trial as malaria is still very high in the country.

Significance for Africa

Africa’s Heads of State recognise that technology is critical to accelerating the continent’s economic development, as embodied in the African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063.
To this extent, the AU directed its development agency to establish the Africa Union High-level Panel on Emerging Technologies to provide expert advice on matters of technology and development.
The establishment allows the continent to leverage current and emerging innovations and technologies with a high potential to transform Africa’s science base into a competitive advantage