Frequently Asked Questions about Antibody Immunotherapy for Fetal Protection From Rh-related Hemolytic Diseases

If you’re expecting childbirth soon enough and you have a negative Rhesus factor in your blood and you’re in the dark when it comes to the effect of that if it turns out that your baby has a positive Rhesus factor, then this Q&A blogpost will serve you well in protecting yourself and your baby from hemolytic diseases that can be mild or fatal and also in your subsequent pregnancies in the future.

So what is antibody immunotherapy?

It’s the use of antibodies to override the basic functions of the immune system responses to be able to result in certain effects for the well-being of the patient, like the detection of pathogens or toxins or suppression of certain immune responses.

And how does it work?

Antibodies are proteins , and in its soluble secreted form it goes about finding antigens in pathogens or even the body’s cells that aren’t working correctly and then it binds to it , to either attack it directly or tag it so that the immune system can deal with it .

Also the B cells that produce these antibodies can differentiate into memory cells that help to remind the immune system whenever the antigen that was recognized before to be recognized again but much faster.

And what does this have to do with me if I’m pregnant and I have a negative Rh in my blood?

Rhesus factor is an antigen that’s present at the surface of red blood cells if you have a positive Rh factor , while if it’s negative , you don’t have it , and thus if your fetus has it and you don’t , and the fetus’s blood gets mixed with your system , your immune system will react to it as a foreign body and will develop antibodies to attack it based on binding with that antigen and it will also produce memory B cells to remember the antigen that was recognized whenever it presents itself again , and thus this could lead to hemolytic diseases for the new born that could be mild like anemia or fatal like heart failure , and of course the same risk in future pregnancies .

And is it possible to prevent this from happening?

In antibody immunotherapy it’s possible to do that as a form of immunosuppression that prevents this form of sensitization, and it occurs through the introduction of RhD inhibitors in the form of antibodies that prevent the production of both form of B cell production whether it’s antibodies or memory B cells, and such treatment happens before and immediately after birth to insure protection.

Global Allied Pharmaceuticals (GAP) is a pharmaceutical company, working to deliever immunotherapy services. Contact us on www.gapsos.com.

Frequently Asked Questions on Cancer Immunotherapy for the Complete Beginner.

If you’re beginning to study or learn about cancer immunotherapy, you might have a lot of basic questions that need answering, related to the reason why it was developed in the first place despite the presence of several mainstream treatments, and its basis, and why it is useful in the treatment of cancer. And thus in this brief Q&A guide we’ll cover all the questions related to this form of treatment to reach clarity.

So what are mainstream treatments of cancer?

Mainly, they are surgery, chemotherapy (evolved from using mustard gas), and radiation therapy.

And how do the work basically?

Surgery cuts off cells from the body, chemotherapy poisons the cells to their death, and radiation therapy burns them.

And what is wrong with these treatments?

When you’re looking for a way to end a disease, you want to work only on the disease, not on the healthy cells, and these treatments could be extremely lethal and even lead to death in many cases or disfigurement with a lot of unfavorable side effects.

Could any of these treatments be used alone to treat cancer?

Not really, usually the oncologists do the best they can by combining the treatments together to produce the best curative effect possible with the least side-effects using these the combination of all these mechanisms together.

And how did immunotherapy evolve from these techniques?

Scientists were trying to look for a magic bullet, a one stop solution for all cancer without the damage of chemotherapy, they wanted a way to target only cancer cells and kill them and at the same time prevent the healthy cells from being damaged at all, and it’s well-known that the immune system does that naturally.

And is that type of treatment is the ultimate solution for cancer?

Unfortunately, it’s not a first-line type of therapy yet, and it has many limitations, but it certainly has a strong enhancing effect when used in combination with other types of treatments.

If we’re using the immune system, why is it in the first place it can’t attack cancer on its own?

For several reasons , first of all the cancer cells weren’t cancerous in the first place , they were healthy body cells , now that they’ve turned cancerous , the body still identifies them as a part of the body and thus these cells produce the same proteins that put the immune system in check .

Another reason is that even if they do detect some of the cells, the responses aren’t strong enough to completely annihilate them.  

And thus this wraps our brief Q&A about cancer immunotherapy and how it evolved from mainstream treatments and why it’s important for the body.

Want to know more about cancer immunotherapy? Visit www.gapsos.com

Frequently Asked Questions about Antibodies, the Complement Pathway & Effector Functions Activation in the Field of Antibody Immunotherapy.

If you’re looking for information about antibodies that can help you understand the field of antibody immunotherapy better , then this Q&A blogpost will help answer many of your questions about natural antibodies , and how antibodies lead to the activation of the complement pathway , and the activation of effector functions .

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So how does antibody immunotherapy works?

It’s designing antibodies that work on overriding the immune system responses and lead to certain effects that lead to the annihilation of a pathogen or anti-tumor effects and much more.

What are natural antibodies and the difference between the ones we’ve already mentioned?

Natural antibodies are flowing in the bloodstream of a person, but it’s produced without the presence of infections, foreign bodies, vaccinations…etc. . . .

While the ones we mentioned are usually produced due to an immune response.

And what are these antibodies used on?

They can lead to the activation of the complement system to lead to the pathogen’s lysis before the adaptive immune system starts responding.

Here’s another example, when it comes the xenotransplantation of organs which is transplanting cells or organs from one species to another, these antibodies are thought to be part of the resistance.

Alright, can you tell me how the antibodies assist in the activation of the complement system?

Mainly antibodies that bind to the antigens are capable of attracting the 1^st components of the complement cascade via their receptors and thus leads to the activation of the complement pathway which is classical.

And how can this result in killing the pathogen that the antibody has bound itself to?

It can actually lead to that through two different ways that we’ll take a look at:

The pathogen like bacteria would be ingested through a process called opsonization through phagocytes as a result of being attracted through specific complement molecules as a result of the attraction of the complement cascade, another way is through the assistance of the antibodies through what is called MAC short for membrane attack complex where the pathogen is killed directly.

And what is the activation of effector functions and how is that related to antibodies?

Antibodies actually have at least two paratope , these paratope are capable of attaching to antigen epitopes , and through that ability the antibody can attach itself to several antigens and then through the coating of the pathogen it’s possible to activate effector functions to be able to attack these cells .

What is Dendritic cell based Immunotherapy and T cell Adoptive Transfer therapy.

In this blog we are going to serve the details of dendritic cell based Antibody Drug Conjugate and Adoptive T cell transfer therapy.

Regarding dendritic cell based therapy; one must know that dendritic cells have the ability to be stimulated to produce a cytotoxic response towards a certain antigen.

Mainly for this to happen, dendritic cells which are a type of cells that present antigens, are collected from a patient. Then these cells are either transfected with a unit of a virus or are pulsed with an antigen. When the sample is reintroduced into the patient, as a result of the activation of these cells, they present the tumor antigen into the lymphocyte effector, which is made of CD4, CD8, T Cells, and B cells.

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This leads to an initiation of a cytotoxic response to the cells that are expressing the tumor antigen. An example of this approach is Sipuleucel T which is used mainly to treat patients with metastatic prostate cancer (HRPC).

On the other hand, the Adoptive T cell transfer, is mainly the transfer of T cells to produce a cytotoxic effect to attack cancerous cells, naturally these types of cells are reactive to cancerous cells. To introduce them to patients, they are generated in vitro and then re-introduced to the patient.

An example of this was shown in a study where there is introduction of lymphocytes that were autologous and tumor penetrating as an effective treatment for metastatic melanoma. In accordance to this procedure, the following must occur:

First the T cells that are inside the tumor within the patient must be extracted. Then these T cells are trained to battle the tumor cells, usually these are referred to Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL).

Then they are grown in vitro using high concentration. Of allo-reactive feeder cells, IL2, & anti CD3. Then these T cells are transferred back and introduced into the patient with the administration of IL2 exogenously to further increase noticeably their anti-effect on cancer. This leads to about a 51 % objective response rate, and in some cases the tumors were undetectable in size.

Thus, in this way it has been introduced the details of dendritic cell based therapy and adoptive T cell transfer and it’s used for treatment.

Global Allied Pharmaceuticals is providing immunotherapy and immune-oncology services since more than 14 years. Contact us at www.gapsos.com.