There’s currently no cure or specific treatment for dengue fever, or its more serious forms, dengue haemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. A patient’s own immune system must fight the viral infection, and this could take about two weeks.
But a new antibody-based medicine being developed by researchers in Singapore could soon help patients with dengue clear their infection within hours. And what’s more, any Aedes aegypti mosquito that bites them would not spread the infection to the rest of their family.
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In 2012, Associate Professor Paul MacAry and his team from the Immunology Translational Research Programme at the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) isolated a human antibody after screening “literally hundreds of millions” of antibodies derived from individuals who had recovered from dengue, he recounted.
“We saw this outlier, this antibody that appeared to kill the virus within a few hours, and it did it at concentrations that were much lower than any of the other antibodies we isolated,” said MacAry, who is also the director of the NUS’ Life Sciences Institute.
The researchers initially thought it was a mistake, but repeated tests showed otherwise. “The potency is off the charts,” MacAry said.
Today, the scientists have not only isolated antibodies to all four dengue serotypes but also made kilogrammes of these substances and are gearing up for clinical trials of the four “super potent” medicines. According to MacAry, the medicines his team are developing would be the most potent therapy for dengue that currently exists.
IN THIS VIDEO:
00:00 What happens when you get infected with the dengue virus
00:51 Finding a cure for dengue by looking at our immune system
01:32 Looking for a powerful antibody against the virus
02:50 Growing antibodies in the lab
03:40 How the new dengue medicine might work
Produced in partnership with the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.
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