A new study led by Queen Mary University of London has demonstrated the effectiveness of using a novel light technology to monitor the presence of antibodies to alemtuzumab in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS).
The researchers say that they have also applied the technology to COVID-19 for potential use in antibody testing to determine whether someone has previously been infected with the virus.
The GloBody platform uses a light-producing enzyme, called nanoluciferase, to detect anti-drug antibodies. The tool can identify people who are likely to respond to treatment and those who might fail to respond to treatment before it occurs. This allows patients to be switched to a different drug, avoiding the morbidity associated with ineffective treatment.
This study, published in the journal Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation and carried out in collaboration with Cardiff University, demonstrated the high reliability of the GloBody platform to detect the anti-drug antibodies and predict which patients were subsequently likely to fail treatment.
Lead researcher Dr Angray Kang from Queen Mary University of London said: “Although we only looked at anti-drug antibody responses in multiple sclerosis, this approach can be applied to any therapeutic antibody in any clinical condition. The technology can also be used in pre-clinical animal models, saving time and effort before moving to clinical trials in humans."
“If you can predict that a drug will not work in a patient, then you prevent them from receiving futile and often expensive treatments. Some of these treatments cost the NHS close to half a million pounds per person a year, so being able to tell if a treatment is not working is important so you can quickly switch to something else.”
The researchers say that the technology has also been developed to detect immune responses against infections and monitor disease outbreaks, including COVID-19.
“Within a few days, we have already been able to produce sufficient amounts of the COVID-19 GloBody™ reagent to potentially test 1.6 million people for COVID-19. That’s enough to test all of the NHS staff in the UK. And if the virus mutates, a new test could be made just as quickly,” Dr Kang added.
The researchers caution that any GloBody COVID-19 antibody test needs to be validated as an accurate test before being put into widespread use. The validation process has started within Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London.
