A team at the University of Virginia has developed a monoclonal antibody to stop sepsis, the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals.
There is good news from Virginia when it comes to the deadly infection sepsis.
“This is truly a groundbreaking discovery,” said Jianjie Ma, a professor in the department of surgery at the University of Virginia. “Sepsis is a very challenging disease to treat.”
Ma is part of the team at U.Va., along with the University of Michigan, that has developed a monoclonal antibody to stop sepsis. The deadly infection impacts up to 50 million people worldwide every year, killing about 11 million people, according to researchers. It’s the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals.
“It’s a really urgent matter in the hospital, because when patients are admitted to the hospital, they have to be treated right away,” he said. “Any delay, one hour delay will cost 5% to 10% chance of people dying.”
U.Va. has received $800,000 from the research company Virginia Catalyst to launch a clinical trial of the antibody at U.Va. Health and Virginia Commonwealth University.
“Our technology will, can stop the dying process by targeting the very innate immune defense of our body,” Ma said.
He said the antibody has the potential to treat a range of inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune disorders.
“We are ready, and we have a lot of goals ahead of us,” Ma said. “It’s a really urgent matter in the hospital.”
He said applications could include deadly acute respiratory distress syndrome, which came to public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as ischemia-reperfusion injury, which is tissue damage caused when blood flow is cut off and restored.
“We have now made the antibody drug product available to start the clinical trial as soon as we can,” he said.
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