Newly Refined Antibody Therapy May Be Potent Treatment For Autoimmune Diseases

An old, fickle therapy for a variety of autoimmune diseases is getting a makeover, thanks to a decade-long investigation. The original treatment, called intravenous immunoglobulin or IVIG, is an amalgam of specific antibodies made from the pooled blood plasma of thousands of healthy donors. Physicians have used it both on-label and off in patients with lupus, arthritis, asthma and other immune disorders, to varying degrees of success. But new research shows that understanding how the therapy works at a molecular level can help researchers create a version in the lab that's many times more potent.