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Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are currently being developed for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Despite clinical success, widespread application of mAb therapies may be limited by manufacturing capabilities. In this paper, we describe a mAb delivery system that allows continuous production of a full-length antibody at high-concentrations in vivo after gene transfer. The mAb is expressed from a single open reading frame by linking the heavy and light chains with a 2A self-processing peptide derived from the foot-and-mouth disease virus. Using this expression system, we generated a recombinant adeno-associated virus vector encoding the VEGFR2-neutralizing mAb DC101 (rAAV8-DC101). A single dose of rAAV8-DC101 resulted in long-term expression of>1,000µg/ml of DC101 in mice, demonstrating significant anti-tumor efficacy. This report describes the first feasible gene therapy approach for stable delivery of mAbs at therapeutic levels, which may serve as an attractive alternative to direct injection of mAbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents data related to biotechnology research papers in the U.S. The US remains the most productive country in terms of biotech-related papers. But numbers of papers from the European Union surpassed the US last year (with Germany and the UK ahead of most EU countries); elsewhere, Korea, China and Japan also publish frequently. Some of the top cited papers, published in different journals, by field are: RNAi--Systematic functional analysis of the Caenorhabditis elegans genome using RNAi; Gene therapy--LMO2-associated clonal T cell proliferation in two patients after gene therapy for SCID-X2 and Nuclear transfer--Derivation of oocytes from mouse embryonic stem cells.

The author comments on the paper presented on a clinical trial, in which an anti-HIV-1 gene is transferred and expressed using a lentiviral vector. The author suggests that the trial demonstrated safe gene delivery to patients' T-cells and that lentiviral vectors can be effectively used in treating various disorders. The author gives details related to lentiviral vectors and concludes that the vectors play a vital role in advancing gene therapy applications in different conditions.

In this article, the author discusses the reorganization of the research and development (R&D) operations of the pharmaceutical company Merck by setting up the four new innovation hubs in several parts of the world. Topics discussed include sales of internal compounds including external therapies against glaucoma, psychiatric disorders and male infertility, identification of papers of translational interest published in several journals, and limited pool of academic investigators.

Focuses on the construction of influenza A virus from cloned cDNA segments. Difficulties faced in the in vitro alteration of the virus; Key features of the approach applied by researchers to study the pathogen; Cautions of a senior writer on the research paper on genetic engineering of influenza; Potential use of influenza for vaccines and gene therapy.