Question

Antibodies have been used in drug development in targeting specific tissues and part of the normal humoral immune response. Recently, new anti-cancer antibodies have been developed as a new type of chemotherapy agent.

1. Identify disease and describe how you could design a “drug” based on an antibody.
2. Describe how this drug could enhance the immune response.
3. Explain why this could be an effective treatment for that disease.
4. Identify both, advantages and disadvantages, to this strategy.

Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with citations and references in APA format.

Answer 1

ANSWER 1:-

1. The condition mentioned is cancer. The cancer cells are formed due to uncontrolled division of the cell due to inability to regulate cell cycle.
2. There are two types of mechanisms for designing a drug although they follow a same pathway. An antibody is a chemical that is directed to a particular cell surface receptor or protein and to a foreign antigen.
3. First of all, the interaction between the antibody and the cell surface receptors needs to be checked. In the next step, the output of the interaction can be evaluated. The antibody can act as a marker molecule to elucidate a response or specifically destroy the cells although this mechanism is rare in action.
4. The sequence of the antibody needs to be determined. The ' Fab ' region plays a vital role in determining the output of antigen-antibody interaction. Apart from this, the N-terminal domain helps in determining the specificity of the antibody towards the antigen or the cell surface receptors on the cancer cells. By means of sequence analysis, the interaction can be studied.
5. The antibodies can either bind to the target cell receptor such as in case of the drug Alentuzumab which acts on the cells that have triggered leukemia. This includes receptors like CD-52 (Campath antigen) found on the cells to specifically derive an immune response.
6. Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) is another mechanism that is associated with using an antibody conjugated with a cytotoxic drug in order to destroy the target cell. This method is highly specific allowing the antibody to interact with only the target cell and this indicates specificity of reaction.

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