What is bispecific antibodies and how are they used to treat DLBCL?

What are bispecific antibodies and how are they used to treat Dlbcl?

Bispecific antibodies is a new class of drug which has been developed to treat different diseases, including B-cell lymphoma. And the most frequent B-cell lymphoma is diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. This new family of drugs are based upon what we learn of how the immune system can fight the disease, what we call bispecific antibodies are antibodies that have been engineered to not only recognize the tumor cells and lymphoma cell, but also to recognize the immune system, by stimulating the cells in the immune systems that we call T-cell, engage them, activate them to kill the tumor cells.

They are called bispecifics, because while usually one monoclonal antibody recognize only one target, here they recognize two targets, one on the tumor cell, one on the immune system, and that's the goal of this treatment to activate the immune system, to kill the tumor cells, in this case diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

How do bispecific antibodies activate the immune system to attack Dlbcl cells?

One of the key cells that is important in the immune system is called T cell. These T cells are able when they are activated to proliferate and release different molecules that are killing the cells that is nearby. This is called cytotoxic T cells. So what happens when we use bispecific is they recognize the tumor cells or diffuse large B cell cell.

And they engage the T cell to activate them to become cytotoxic and to kill the Dlbcl cells.

And this happens in a very short period of time. What we don't still completely know is whether this occurs only for T cell and lymphoma cells that are already nearby, or if possibly this is also the ability of these bispecific to take T cell that are in the bloodstream and bring them at the tumor site to reinforce the immune system at the tumor site, and to engage new T cells to fight the disease.