What do antibodies do?

What do antibodies do? Why do we need them? We know that multiple myeloma cells are cancerous plasma cells. And plasma cells are very important to produce antibodies. And the antibodies are very important that we exist. Without antibodies, we would die from simple infections. So we need the plasma cells to produce antibodies to survive. Because the antibodies will kill the viruses and also bacteria. The paradox is that we also use antibodies to kill the multiple myeloma cells to the plasma cells. We know that right now we are able to produce antibodies artificially. And those antibodies not binding bacteria or viruses, they bind the myeloma cell and kill the myeloma cell. So it's a very elegant way. Sometimes the patients are confused and say, wait a moment, I get treatment with an antibody. But at the same time, my body is producing antibody. What is this? So don't mix it. Antibodies are proteins that target viruses, bacteria or tumor cells and kill bacteria, viruses or tumor cells. You produce normal antibodies in your body, which help you to fight infections. But when you get daratumumab or esatuximab, those are antibodies that are artificially produced and they target not viruses, they target the myeloma cell and kill the myeloma cell. What is the relationship between an antibody and an antigen? One of the basic functions of our immune system is recognizing things that are foreign and getting rid of them like bacteria and viruses. And one of the ways our immune system does that is by making proteins called antibodies. And every antibody recognizes a specific shape, which we call an antigen, often a protein itself, often on the surface of cells and latches on to that antigen and then signals to the immune system to come along and attack the cell that carries that antigen on the outside of the cell. Antibodies are proteins that are made by our immune system that help us to defend us from infection. And what an antibody is, is it's a Y-shaped protein that's made to recognize specific shapes that our immune system encounters. So after one gets a vaccine or after one gets an infection, our body's immune system turns that experience into lifelong or long lasting protection by making antibodies. Now, the way that our body does that is through making very specific types of immune cells that can make proteins, these antibodies, to recognize these shapes in the future and to consistently make these proteins and help keep these very specific shapes, to make these antibodies to recognize these specific shapes and to stay around for quite a long time. So the plasma cells are the way that our body's immune system makes this long lasting antibody protection. So when our body encounters an infection or vaccine, it takes that experience and turns it into a plasma cell, which is really the long term factory for these antibodies. And so throughout the course of our life, our body has these plasma cells, which can be either short lived or long lived. And those can be activated when our bodies encounter that specific shape that we knew from our past experience, either through infection or vaccination, that was an invader. It wasn't something that we wanted around. So our body can, in response to experiencing an infectious issue or an infectious pathogen again, make antibodies to help counter and defend us from that infection in the future. And so our normal plasma cells, they live in our bone marrow and can be called upon to make specific antibodies against infections for the duration of our life. I think the importance for the patients with multiple myeloma is that, as we know, multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer that comes from these plasma cells. And so when myeloma is initially diagnosed or when myeloma is active, the dominance of the myeloma plasma cells can sometimes crowd out the normal plasma cells and really interfere with the ability of our normal plasma cells to make antibodies that can defend us from infection. So this is one of the reasons why myeloma patients can be more at risk of getting infections like pneumonia, bronchitis, these upper respiratory infections that are normally defended against by antibodies. The disease itself can really interfere with our body's ability to make antibodies and can be a really big problem for patients with myeloma. So that's one of the reasons that we think, you know, in treating myeloma patients, you know, although we are killing plasma cells with our treatments, when patients can get into a place where their myeloma is well treated, we hope that their normal plasma cells can begin to take hold again and make normal antibodies and try to restore a more normal sense of immunity for patients.