[Recombinant antibodies against bioweapons]

Abstract

The threat posed by bioweapons (BW) could lead to the re-emergence of such deadly diseases as plague or smallpox, now eradicated from industrialized countries. The development of recombinant antibodies allows tackling this risk because these recombinant molecules are generally well tolerated in human medicine, may be utilized for prophylaxis and treatment, and because antibodies neutralize many BW. Recombinant antibodies neutralizing the lethal toxin of anthrax, botulinum toxins and the smallpox virus have in particular been isolated recently, with different technologies. Our approach, which uses phage-displayed immune libraries built from non-human primates (M. fascicularis) to obtain recombinant antibodies, which may later be super-humanized (germlinized), has allowed us to obtain such BWs-neutralizing antibodies.