Researchers have isolated two potent monoclonal antibodies from Ebola survivors that target the three major Ebola viruses that cause disease in humans. The antibodies were shown to efficiently target the virus in both cell culture and animal models. The research was done at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and published in Immunity.
The research team have been studying the immune responses of people who survived Ebola virus disease for several years. Over the course of their work, they developed high-efficiency methods to isolate antibody-producing white blood cells from survivor blood samples to fuse to fuse to fast-growing myeloma cells in order to produce large quantities of antibodies that target specific viruses.
For this study, plasma was obtained from survivors of outbreaks in the Congo and West Africa. The monoclonal antibodies, EBOV-515 and EBOV-520, were generated from the white blood cells of two survivors that showed the highest activity against the three Ebola viruses.
While the findings are still preliminary, they offer hope for someday developing an injectable antibody “cocktail” for people at high risk for Ebola infection. These antibodies could seek out and destroy viruses before they can perform their harmful actions.