iuvo BioScience Toxicologist Dr. Cheryl Marker was coauthor of a paper that was published in the February 2023 issue of Cell Reports entitled “A trypanosome-derived immunotherapeutics platform elicits potent high-affinity antibodies, negating the effects of the synthetic opioid fentanyl”. Dr. Marker works in the Lumino Advisors consulting group, as part of iuvo’s consulting team.
Opioid overdose is a significant public health threat, and the treatment of opioid overdose is a vital area of research. Anti-opioid vaccines are a promising avenue of research due to their specificity and their ability to be used in conjunction with other treatments.
Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), raised against specific opioids, could be used as an alternative or additive method with naloxone (e.g. Narcan®) for treating overdose. Due to their small molecular size, opioids do not elicit a strong immunological response.
In this paper, the authors exploited the unique immunogenicity of Trypanosoma brucei to generate mAbs against fentanyl. Potentially, this platform could be used to create mAbs against other small molecules such as other opioids and other drugs of abuse.
Read the full paper here.
