BioCentury
ARTICLE | Cover Story

Dendritic cell depletion for acute GvHD

February 19, 2009 8:00 AM UTC

Although many companies in the graft-versus-host disease space are targeting the T cells responsible for destroying host tissues, an Australian research group has moved upstream and developed an antibody that attacks the cells responsible for triggering the disease cascade. The preclinical antibody against CD83 depletes the activated dendritic cells responsible for the uncontrolled allogeneic T cell proliferation that leads to acute GvHD.1

In contrast to other prophylactic and therapeutic options for the disease, the antibody also spared most preexisting donor T cell populations, including memory T cells and effector T cells, which could lower the risk of infection and leukemia relapse in patients receiving allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants...