Ebola survivor Amber Vinson to aid in search of a cure
Dallas nurse Amber Vinson is donating blood Jan. 21, 2015, to an Austin, Texas, biotech firm in hopes of finding a cure for the deadly Ebola virus.(Photo: WFAA-TV, Dallas)DALLAS — Ebola survivor Amber Vinson will donate blood to a drug development company that hopes to develop a beneficial drug that could help other victims.Vinson's blood, which was exposed to the deadly virus and was subsequently cleared of it, is a strong candidate for such a venture because of its antibodies, officials at Austin, Texas-based XBiotech said."We assume that the people who survive Ebola have survived it largely because they have some very good antibodies," John Simard, XBiotech's CEO said.Vinson, 29, contracted the virus while a nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas caring for Thomas Duncan, a Liberian national who died of the disease Oct. 8. Fellow nurse Nina Pham, 26, also contracted the virus and survived."I'm one of the few people here in the states that can provide the blood for research," Vinson said. "Maybe something wonderful can come out of it, so I want to do my part to help."Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly of Fort Worth donated his blood to compatible Ebola victims in the United States, under the assumption that Ebola-resistant antibodies he developed would help others."Before I talked to any company, people said, 'You should sell your blood for however many hundreds of dollars,'" Vinson said. "But that's not where my heart is."XBiotech won Vinson over by guaranteeing to donate 5 percent of gross revenues on any Ebola drug emanating from Vinson to patient care. The money will go to those who can't afford treatment, wherever they are."We're going ahead with this project on the basis of making it available to everyone — one way or another," Simard said.XBiotech is unique in addition to its financial guarantees in the venture.Instead of engineering antibodies in a complicated process like conventional biotechnology, the firm clones antibodies directly from disease-resistant humans. Then it produces them in large temperature and gas-controlled plastic bags, which provide a compatible environment for the cells to flourish.The simple production process means lower costs and cheaper drugs. Because the drugs are made out of true human genetic material manufactured in the body, patients are less prone to toxic adverse reactions which can occur in engineered products.The process still begins with the tricky task of isolating Vinson's appropriate antibodies and determining how they react with some of the genetic material in Ebola."We have to make some model proteins that are associated with the virus, and then see where the antibodies interact with them," Simard said.He said he could have some candidate antibodies as soon as three months from now.That's great news for Vinson. "I want to do what I can to help," she said. "That's the 'nurse' part of me. It's a changing world, and this is a step I can take to help the next person out."Simard is quick to point out that developing drugs is a complicated process, full of hurdles and potholes, biological and political. If potential antibodies were discovered, there would still be much more to do to put the drug into use.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น