Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[jazzbeerman]

Soares & Thorpe at AAI May 19th


Hope they bring something new. The abstract (below) is the Pichinde info we're familiar with.

I'm looking forward to seeing Dr's Soares/Thorpe anti-PS/viral paper...
Dr. Godofsky's AASLD presentation last Oct. contained a few slides that mentioned a Soares viral paper was in the works..


here's the upcoming AAI abstract:



ANTIBODY-MEDIATED TARGETING OF “INSIDEOUT”
ANIONIC PHOSPHOLIPIDS IN VIRAL
DISEASE


Melina Soares, Sameer Syed, Gustavo Barbero, Philip E
Thorpe. Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center, 2201 Inwood Road, NC7.304, MC 9041,
Dallas, TX, 75390

The anionic phospholipid phosphatidylserine (PS) is found
exclusively in the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane of
resting mammalian cells. We hypothesized that certain
events that occur during virus replication (eg cell activation
or membrane rearrangement) would trigger the exposure of
anionic phospholipids on the outer surface of virusinfected
cells and subsequently on the enveloped viruses
that bud out of these virus- infected cells. We further
hypothesized that these exposed anionic phospholipids
would serve as targets for anti-viral therapy. We
demonstrate here that anionic phospholipids become
exposed on the enveloped Pichinde Virus (a model virus
for Lassa Fever virus, a potential bioterrorism agent) and
on Pichinde virus-infected cells. To detect anionic
phospholipids, we used a chimeric monoclonal antibody,
bavituximab, that binds anionic phospholipids in a B2-
glycoprotein I dependent manner. We show that
bavituximab treatment is able to cure overt disease in
guinea pigs lethally infected with Pichinde virus.
Bavituximab treatment reduced the amounts of virus in
multiple tissues and caused direct clearance of virus from
the blood. Direct clearance of free virus and antibodydependent
cellular cytotoxicity of virus-infected cells
appear to be the major mechanisms that contribute to the
anti-viral effect of bavituximab. Bavituximab-treated
survivors were immune to reinfection. Furthermore, the
murine version of bavituximab, 3G4, shows therapeutic
efficacy in a lethal murine model for human
cytomegalovirus. Our study demonstrates the promise of
anionic phospholipids as targets for new broad-spectrum
anti-viral drugs.


http://submissions.miracd.com/immunology2007/Itinerary/login.asp



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