Latest / Pediatrics Now: Cases Updates and Discussions for the Busy Pediatric Practitioner / The Future of Vaccines: An Interview with the Doctor Who Created the First Fully Humanized Immune Systems in Mice
Transcript
- 0:00I'm Holly Wayment, and this is Pediatrics Now, cases, updates,
- 0:05and discussions for the busy pediatric practitioner.
- 0:08Click on the link in this podcast for a free credit that may include CME,
- 0:13MOC, or ethics credit depending on our topic or podcast.
- 0:18I am so honored today because here in the podcast studio with me is Dr.
- 0:23Paolo Casali. He's the University of Texas Ashwell Smith Professor and Distinguished
- 0:29Research Professor, Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular Genetics.
- 0:35He's Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Long School of Medicine.
- 0:39Dr. Casale, first, thank you so much for being here in the podcast studio today.
- 0:44My pleasure. So you and your team have accomplished something that is so amazing
- 0:50and so interesting and will affect medicine for countless years to come.
- 0:57So you all have created the first humanized immune system in mice.
- 1:04Well, thank you for your kind words. Actually, this is not the first humanized
- 1:10mouse. humanized mice have been.
- 1:16Had been attempted to be constructed since the 80s, the late 80s,
- 1:24when there was an urgent need to model in vivo the human immune response to HIV.
- 1:33And so those were the first, so to say, humanized mice.
- 1:38In fact, those precursors of humanized mice were very rudimental.
- 1:46Very primitive, and they really didn't quite, those mice never quite mounted a good immune response,
- 1:56to antigens or viruses, whatever,
- 2:02immunogen.
- 2:05And this has been really the shortcoming of the different varieties of humanized
- 2:13mice throughout the last many years.
- 2:16And I think it's proper to say that our mice are the first fully humanized mice,
- 2:26the first mice with essentially a 100% human immune system.
- 2:33So you and your team are the first to create mice with a fully humanized immune
- 2:41system. And fully functional.
- 2:43And fully functional. It's incredible. So, what does this mean for medicine?
- 2:50Well, I think it's a simple and complex answer.
- 2:56But first one, we have to define what humanized mice mean.
- 3:03And what it means is these are mice with a fully, virtually,
- 3:11or fully, as one could argue here, human immune system.
- 3:16So the mice are mice, but they are immunodeficient mice, virtually without immune system, so to say.
- 3:25And this mice accept a graft consisting of human hematopoietic stem cells and
- 3:37these are the cells that will give rise,
- 3:41will proliferate and differentiate and give rise to a whole human immune system.
- 3:49And these stem cells are hematopoietic,
- 3:54meaning they are stem cells that will give rise to cells of the immune systems.
- 4:05But of the lymphoid lineage, such as BAD lymphocytes, myeloid systems,
- 4:12such as granulocytes, neutrophils, and macrophages.
- 4:16And then once grafted in immunodeficient mice,
- 4:23again, then within a number of weeks, you will have those mice fully constituted
- 4:31in the immune system, functional immune system.
- 4:35Now, how that is done, it's important to understand what the potential of these humanized mice is.
- 4:44So it is done by crafting hematopoietic, human hematopoietic stem cells from
- 4:52core blood, from neonatal core blood.
- 4:56And so we take cold blood with the help of the OBGYN department.
- 5:06Fresh cold blood, we purify the hematopoietic stem cells from that cold blood,
- 5:13and then graft within 24 or 48 hours of birth this sort of special immunodeficient mice.
- 5:25Those are pups, they're neonates, and we graft those mice intracardically with a small insulin needle.
- 5:38And the grafting is
- 5:41done in the left ventricle to maximize the dissemination of stem cells throughout
- 5:49all districts of the bodies so that those stem cells will become resident of
- 5:58wherever bone marrow will develop.
- 6:01Now, these are special immunodeficient mice in that they carry a mutation on
- 6:10the CKIT receptor, and they are referred to as W41.
- 6:15We did not generate these immunoleficient mice.
- 6:20These mice have been available for about four years.
- 6:25The interesting thing is that nobody really took advantage of them to...
- 6:32To create immunized mice with a fully functional immune system.
- 6:39More precisely, I should say that the two different groups,
- 6:44one in Minnesota, the other one in Germany, who created these immune-efficient
- 6:52mice with the same mutation, W44 mutation,
- 6:56actually did craft them with human hematopoietic stem cells and they did quite
- 7:03full characterization of the developing immune cell elements.
- 7:11But they didn't really do much of functional studies on the immune response
- 7:22potential of these mice.
- 7:24And this is what we have done. What we have done, which has been different from
- 7:31any other humanized mouse,
- 7:34has been the crafting in intracardiac grafting and,
- 7:40importantly,
- 7:42the hormonal conditioning with estradiol, with estrogen, of male or female pups.
- 7:51And this is what really has made a big difference in terms of the development of the immune system.
- 8:03And the functioning, and the differentiation, further differentiating, I should say,
- 8:09further differentiation of immune cell elements once these mice were challenged,
- 8:16were immunized with different conjugated optins, and those are main-made molecules.
- 8:24But how many years in the making has this been? It has been five years.
- 8:29Is this a dream that you've had for a long time to accomplish this?
- 8:34Or how, Paolo, can you tell us about how this came about, how you got into this? How I got into it?
- 8:39I think my age has played a major role in it.
- 8:43In that experience, I should say.
- 8:46My many years of research in immunology have always been, has certainly always
- 8:55been with the human immune system and immune response in mind.
- 9:02But my research has always been very basic, very molecular,
- 9:07very much into the cell, namely B cells, B lymphocytes, which are the cells
- 9:13that make antibodies, and very much with a molecular genetic flavor,
- 9:20very much about regulation of genes that encode antibodies.
- 9:27Cross-reaching somatic permutation of those genes.
- 9:31And with my aging, I became, I have become.
- 9:42Much more determined and, I should say,
- 9:49much more motivated to do something that will have an immediate relevance to vaccine development,
- 9:58to the human antibody response, but particularly antibody response,
- 10:03because I always worked on B lymphocytes, and as I say, antibody genes.
- 10:08And I should say that my persuasion is not only mine, has become stronger and
- 10:17stronger than if you want a good vaccine.
- 10:22You need to be able to generate a good antibody response, one that is very specific
- 10:29and neutralizing a virus or a bacterium or whatever else or a toxin.
- 10:36And so once we have become more and more familiar with the intimate molecular
- 10:45mechanism that underpins the generation of a mature antibody response,
- 10:53again, one that matures, one that that is highly specific and can neutralize microbial agents.
- 11:04And one has certain features, regular features in the antibodies.
- 11:11And that is, again, those antibodies are generally IgG or IgA,
- 11:18and they're invariably actually somatically mutated.
- 11:25In the variable region of the antibody molecule.
- 11:30And this is what provides a substrate for the selection of high-affinity mutants,
- 11:37submutants, I should say,
- 11:38in those B-cell codes that are selected by the antigen driving the response, such as the HA,
- 11:48the glycoprotein spike of influenza virus, virus or the surface antigen on bacteria,
- 11:57Fragilin in Salmonella, for instance.
- 12:01And so the idea was, at this point, we need to be able to do.
- 12:11Experiment in vitro in a 100% immune system.
- 12:15Because if we can do that, then we are in the position of, finally,
- 12:23of being able to do vaccine development.
- 12:28Vaccine testing of drug, if not development, but certainly testing,
- 12:37particularly, well, in any case, of drugs.
- 12:41Immune modulators such as checkpoint inhibitors in the case of the antibody
- 12:47immune response to tumors, solid tumors, and many other things that one cannot do.
- 12:56To this day, if you develop a vaccine, the last step the FDA wants you to efficacy,
- 13:05before going even to phase one in non-human primates.
- 13:12Non-human primates are not exactly human. They're very similar,
- 13:15very close to us, incredibly close to us, but in many ways are not exactly human.
- 13:24This is perhaps not even the major obstacle in the use of human primates.
- 13:32One problem with human primates is that they are so close to us that you don't want,
- 13:40I certainly don't want to do what has been done with human primates, with those primates,
- 13:50non-human primates, for many years in the whole story of HIV, for instance.
- 13:56Certainly, many things have been done with those non-human primates that shouldn't
- 14:02have been done, and which today are not accepted and not done.
- 14:08Because of cruelty? Yes.
- 14:13And unnecessary experiments. experiments. So this will reduce,
- 14:21the amount of testing that needs to be done on non-human primates.
- 14:27Hopefully, if these mice turned out to be really what they are,
- 14:33I'm being very cautious here, but they turned out to be really what they seem
- 14:38to be, and I think they are,
- 14:41then you could do,
- 14:44a lot of vaccine development because you're dealing with an in vivo human immune system.
- 14:50And you cannot do that in humans for ethical reasons. Yes.
- 14:55It will help dramatically pave the way for even better vaccines,
- 15:00more targeted vaccines.
- 15:03Yes. And then when it comes to tumors.
- 15:07It's already been with a few THX mice. Targeted therapies? These are our mice.
- 15:14Here, actually, we are collaborating with giving our mice to a couple of groups
- 15:22working with different tumors, solid tumors.
- 15:25So this investigator grafts tumor tissue from humans into the mice and then
- 15:33studies the overall reaction to that tumor. more.
- 15:38And that reaction is human, be it inflammatory or immune, explicitly immune response.
- 15:47Wow. So I started some investigatory, I started doing that.
- 15:52You worked, Paolo, for many years as an immunologist.
- 15:56And so instead of retiring, like a lot of people do, you really revved up your
- 16:01research and the urgency to make a difference and get this done. Yes.
- 16:07And the NIH offers experience and knowledge, but it also offers security.
- 16:14I was always well-funded with the NIH.
- 16:17But at this point, I could afford to do something that I was not funded for.
- 16:23Really? That's amazing.
- 16:26We're going to do it. I'm going to make this happen, right? That's right.
- 16:29Can you tell for us a practical example in, say, for pediatrics?
- 16:35Well, one thing that we already did with these mice, again, we refer to them
- 16:40as THX mice, three true human X mice.
- 16:46This was not me. This was our development office.
- 16:51So one thing that we already did, and it's published in this paper that you
- 16:56mentioned, is we vaccinated these mice with a messenger RNA Pfizer COVID vaccine.
- 17:03Using the schedule, an immunization schedule, which is the same as for humans.
- 17:10And the mice made a neutralizing, strong antibody response neutralizing to SARS-CoV-2.
- 17:19Those are human antibodies, obviously, and we analyze in details the molecular
- 17:26genetic makeup and molecular composition of that response.
- 17:30So again, that's good.
- 17:34We did the same, and that's published as well, with purified Fragilin from Salmonella.
- 17:41We immunized those mice with Fragilin and showed that they mounted a neutralizing
- 17:47antibody response to salmonella,
- 17:49neutralizing, as assessed by in vitro, the classic colony neutralization in petri dishes.
- 17:58But then we also show that the THX mice vaccinated with flagellin survived,
- 18:07fought and survived infectionally like flagellin.
- 18:12The non-vaccinated ones died. So the neutralizing response mounted by the vaccinated device.
- 18:25It was a protective response, protective from infection. Wow. Those mice survived.
- 18:33I lost a little weight. Wow. They made it. Wow. The other ones died, all of them died.
- 18:39And Paolo, I'm imagining it when all the scientists at NASA and the landing
- 18:47is happening in space and there's lots of excitement.
- 18:51When you all realized you had done this, can you describe for me what it was
- 18:57like or what the feeling was like?
- 18:59Or is it dramatic like that? Or it's more you're in the lab, you knew it was coming?
- 19:03I just, I'm trying to imagine the moment when you realize this is,
- 19:08you did it. That's a good question.
- 19:11The climax or the outcome of the death was tempered by the fact that this is so labor intensive.
- 19:20They went front and get there. It's okay.
- 19:24It's so tedious, so labor-intensive. Labor-intensive, yeah. Can you tell me
- 19:29what you were feeling when you realized?
- 19:33That's, in many ways, what was expected. And so, you know, science these days,
- 19:42particularly biomedical science, it's very incremental in province.
- 19:49So it's very different from 50 or 80 years ago. You knew the rocket was going to get there. Right.
- 19:56So do you, what's the next step? What's the plan from here now that? That's a good question.
- 20:04We are trying to do different things using DHX-Vis.
- 20:10Certainly the decision has been made on my part to do any experiment from now
- 20:19on in THX mice so there are different things we are doing we are uh.
- 20:26I've identified actually a transcription factor that is critical for the maturation
- 20:33of the antibody response.
- 20:34It's critical for the expression of AID, activation-induced cytodiaminase,
- 20:42which acts on DNA and diverts the DNA repair machinery of B lymphocytes to act
- 20:52to effect class-rich DNA recombination.
- 20:56And somatic hypermutation. I say divert.
- 21:01I say it diverts, but in fact it's a physiological process.
- 21:06It diverts the physiological process of DNA repair,
- 21:10which comes into place,
- 21:16comes into being in a major way when you go to the beach and you're in the sun
- 21:22and all the DNA repair over you.
- 21:26So that process is physiological, but a process in bilinphocytes that enables
- 21:35the maturation or the affinity maturation of those antibodies,
- 21:41meaning enables the generation of submutants with a much higher specificity for the antigen.
- 21:49Again, be it viral glycoprotein or bacterial components.
- 21:56Toxin, bacteria toxin. That process is physiological as well,
- 22:01but it's really a diversity, diverting of the more general process ongoing in your body all the time.
- 22:11And whenever there is a mutation, it needs to be corrected in the DNA.
- 22:15So we have been working on that, and we have been working on that in vitro, as well as in mice.
- 22:21And now, for the last little stages of that overall investigation.
- 22:28We are using THX mice.
- 22:30So whatever we will find, or actually whatever we are proving,
- 22:38attempting to prove, will be even more relevant because it will be in a human
- 22:44system in vivo. That's for instance one thing.
- 22:49There are other things who have identified a transcription factor that seems
- 22:54to be critical for the maturation, the generation, I should say,
- 23:02of mammary B lymphocytes.
- 23:04Mammary B cells or B lymphocytes, we refer to them as immunologists as B cells.
- 23:11Those B cells, the generation of those B cells is critical for the effectiveness of a vaccine.
- 23:21If a vaccine cannot induce degeneration on memory B cells, then it's not a good vaccine.
- 23:28It's not a vaccine. Because those are the cells.
- 23:33After the vaccination, it will persist in your body for months and years,
- 23:39and they will be recalled, reactivated, when the same antigen comes in again.
- 23:45For instance, if those B cells are generating response to influenza vaccine,
- 23:52influenza virus vaccine, and then in a couple of years, you will come across that virus.
- 23:59That virus will reactivate those cells. Those cells will proliferate and further
- 24:05differentiate and make tons of antibodies to the plaques.
- 24:11Wow. So understanding, getting
- 24:15to know what are the critical transcription factors and what are the other factors
- 24:23that are critical for the generation of memory B cells is critical for vaccine development.
- 24:32In the future, do you see other humanized organs in mice?
- 24:38I mean, are we going to have a fully humanized mouse?
- 24:43Or what is the future? It sounds like science fiction, but it's medical science now.
- 24:48Well, it's interesting. That's a very interesting question.
- 24:52In fact, prior to the development of our mice, which because of hormonal conditioning,
- 25:00And I think actually that deserves a few words.
- 25:04Because of malconditioning, they develop a fully human immune system.
- 25:08Prior to that, different attempts were made to graft,
- 25:14again, earlier humanized mice with human fragments of human thymus for instance
- 25:23to promote the T-cell differentiation of those mice or craft other.
- 25:32Are fragments of other organs in the attempt
- 25:37of, again, promoting a better differentiation of the immune system.
- 25:43So one could speculate, or it's not a big speculation, that you could graft actually,
- 25:53organs or pieces of organs, fragments of organs, such as liver or something else, human.
- 25:58So that in this case, you would study as targets of the immune immune system
- 26:08or the human immune system,
- 26:09targets of autoantibody response, SIS.
- 26:14We show that our mice can mount an autoimmune response, which is really,
- 26:22to all effects, similar as the autoimmune response in human lupus.
- 26:30So one can certainly foresee that. But I want to go back to the hormonal conditioning.
- 26:36The hormonal conditioning that is critical for the full development of the human
- 26:44immune system in THX mice is in fact estrogen condition.
- 26:49So these mice, once they're grafted, they even rise to a certain extent to all immune element,
- 27:03which happens at the age of 20 weeks, 18, 20 weeks, then the mice are put on
- 27:10estradiol E2, estradiol E2,
- 27:14and that's the most potent and the most abundant estrogen.
- 27:25Particularly in females, and we put E2 in water, so the mice,
- 27:31the little mice drink water and they get E2.
- 27:35Now interesting, the blood concentration of E2 that derive, that are generated
- 27:45by the drinking E2 in water at a very small concentration,
- 27:50they are actually very physiological for humans.
- 27:53In female or male THX mice, adult THX mice, the blood concentration we do is
- 28:02around 60-70 picolams per ml.
- 28:05In women, depending on the different stages of the cycle,
- 28:10the blood concentration is from from 30 to 500 picoderms per hour,
- 28:16or even 1,500 picoderms or more in pregnancy.
- 28:24So both female and male THX mice have the same relative ego by human physiological levels.
- 28:35That makes a huge difference.
- 28:41But in the overall differentiation of the immune system, as well as in the immune
- 28:49response once the whole immune system is differentiated.
- 28:54I mean, a lot of people think of mice as pests, but really they could be helping
- 29:01to save humanity. Oh, they always did.
- 29:05Hundred years. And we need to think about that. But even more so now with,
- 29:09with this, it's just, it sounds incredible, but,
- 29:14Mice won't ever become like people mice, right?
- 29:17But the fact is that those mice have a full immune system, but a human cell
- 29:25did not mate to the young mice.
- 29:28So they can reproduce, but they reproduce as mice.
- 29:31It's the same immune deficient mice.
- 29:34So they have to be constructed.
- 29:36Humanized mice have to be constructed. And this is why we have several triangles,
- 29:42goals, meaning one male and two females, and 10, 12 cages all the time,
- 29:49breeding those immune-deficient mice.
- 29:53And then we keep crafting new pups.
- 29:58And so we have quite a few at any time, quite a few THX mice.
- 30:03Do they look different than other mice? Not really, actually.
- 30:07And actually interesting, they are very healthy and they live a normal mouse life.
- 30:16We have constructed already 500 THX mice and we never seen any pathological reaction or anything,
- 30:29any short life.
- 30:33So that's good. are, I think, a question that one wants to ask, why estrogen?
- 30:42Well, and that came from two things.
- 30:45One, there is a lot of anecdotal literature going back quite a long time,
- 30:53and no systematic study was ever made.
- 30:55But it's well accepted that women mount a much better antibody response to viral
- 31:06and bacterial vaccines than men.
- 31:09And there are many papers, mostly anecdotal again.
- 31:17Not great journals, but it is accepted. I certainly embraced it.
- 31:24And the second point is that we have published three or four or five very basic
- 31:32papers in the last many years.
- 31:35Particularly two or three in journal biochemistry, one in natural immunology in 2010 or 97.
- 31:45And those were very basic papers in which we show that a transcription factor,
- 31:54which is L3-4, which is very important in the differentiation,
- 31:59development of drosophila, But it's also very important in the differentiation
- 32:06of B cells, of mammalian B cells,
- 32:10and the regulation of the expression of AID,
- 32:19which at the moment, as I say, is critical for the generation of mature antibodies to die of AID.
- 32:28And we saw that, we showed that clearly in those couple of papers,
- 32:34that Oxy-4 is actually under regulation by E2, by estrogen,
- 32:44by estradiol E2.
- 32:46In that E2 actually after it binds ER estrogen receptor alpha binds to the promoter
- 32:55of that gene of oxy-4 gene and promotes the expression of oxy-4 and then oxy-4
- 33:02promotes the expression of AID.
- 33:05So that was the molecular underpinning for really going ahead with estradiol
- 33:12conditioning. Additionally, the fact that we could put E2 in water of COVID made it very easy.
- 33:19A lot of our listeners have to deal with patients who are vaccine hesitant.
- 33:26Is that particularly frustrating for you as well?
- 33:29How there's this, as we all know, people who may not understand and there's
- 33:36so much misinformation out there.
- 33:39It's something our listeners have to deal with. Is it worth spending the time
- 33:42with this patient who thinks that the vaccine is going to hurt them?
- 33:49It's, I have no words. I mean, that's no words. What can you say? Yeah, it's just...
- 33:57I mean, to me, the most troubling thing is that.
- 34:07Those beliefs are germane to all sorts of different people,
- 34:13well-educated people, wealthy people
- 34:17who have access to all sorts of information as much as other people.
- 34:23So that's the troubling, that's very troubling.
- 34:28Very troubling. And for the practitioners, though, who day in and day out are
- 34:34trying to promote the vaccines, I think it's pretty, it's so impressive that
- 34:39they're doing that on the front lines.
- 34:41Yeah, it's a struggle. I can't imagine how frustrating it is having to deal with that every day.
- 34:50And it's so inspiring, though, to see what you're doing.
- 34:54You worked for many years at the University of California.
- 34:58Yes. And before that you lived in Italy, that's where you're from. Yes.
- 35:04I went to medical school in Milano, University of Milano. And you still go back
- 35:08there, you have a house there?
- 35:10Yes, I go back. Not very often, but I'm lucky because this is a house in the
- 35:16mountains, north of Milano. And I share it with my sister.
- 35:20What do you love about Italy? Not sure what I love.
- 35:23I know you said you don't miss it. You love living in Texas and in the United States.
- 35:28What I love about Italy are Ferraris, Maseratis, and not so much Lamborghinis.
- 35:39But there is a whole history about all that. When I went to the,
- 35:44probably a lot of us have been watching the Olympics, and I went to the 2002
- 35:49Olympics and went to a lot of the events and the award ceremonies and the houses of the athletes.
- 35:54And I got to go to the the Italian house
- 35:57oh yeah and then I I had dinner
- 36:01with the some of the athletes and and it was
- 36:04my first time I was a lot younger then but first
- 36:07time saying where I was so surprised when I said so do you want to move to America
- 36:12and they were just like like why would we want to do that we love our country
- 36:15and I'm like I thought a lot of most people wanted to move to America and I
- 36:20was I felt so embarrassed that they're like no we're having a fun time but We
- 36:24love our country. All the people did move to America.
- 36:28At the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century,
- 36:33they went to Ellis Island.
- 36:35Yes. But the many Italians in Hong Kong, I heard that. Yes.
- 36:41Everywhere, actually, in Chicago, in California. Bank of America was founded
- 36:46by two brothers, Italian brothers. Oh, really?
- 36:50And here on Pediatrics Now, we love quotes. I love quotes.
- 36:54You have a favorite quote that pertains to what we're talking about.
- 36:58If you think that research is expensive, try disease.
- 37:03Yes. That's a great one. And that was by? By Mary Lasker. And that's from the?
- 37:10The same as the Lasker Award. Who is that person? Can you tell us about the person?
- 37:14Well, actually, it's a very wealthy family.
- 37:19And the Lasker Award has always been considered the American Nobel Award.
- 37:26Many Laskar awardees went on to receive the Nobel Prize, and many didn't.
- 37:37Or several men did not.
- 37:41Paolo, anything else you want to say about this that we didn't cover?
- 37:46This has been such an honor, and it's so fascinating.
- 37:49Thank you for your kind words.
- 37:53I think that what you want to say is, well, women are better than men.
- 38:00That's the best demonstration.
- 38:02It has been in the making.
- 38:05A lot of our pediatricians are women, more women, much more women,
- 38:09many more women than men. That's great. That's wonderful. Because when I was in medical school.
- 38:15Most of everything were men pediatrician and it's changed now it's changed when
- 38:22I was at Cornell I was teaching actually I was teaching the host immune defense course.
- 38:30And this is in New York in Manhattan the upper east side so I did that for many
- 38:37years and it was it was very nice it was very different,
- 38:43compared to my to my middle school years, because Sandy, while all is very small,
- 38:52and every class, a culinary is 101, 101 students.
- 38:57And so, 100 students, 101 students are many, few enough for me.
- 39:05The course was seven weeks, six, seven weeks, depending.
- 39:10I was almost got to know Not all of them, but many of them.
- 39:14And when I was reading them, half of them were women, half of them were girls.
- 39:19Just feeling as unusual, very unusual sight.
- 39:23Because when I was in medical school, well, there were really quite a few women, but how many?
- 39:30I don't know, perhaps 20% maybe already, which was really quite a change.
- 39:38And thank goodness it kept changing. It kept changing.
- 39:41And I so admire our listeners helping children on a daily basis.
- 39:47Is there anything you want to say for the hope of the future to the doctors who are listening?
- 39:55Well, I think that a lot of things can be finally done in vivo in humans.
- 40:02In mice, not in humans, but it's a human immune system.
- 40:06Now, this is not the answer to everything. But certainly, you know,
- 40:11vaccine development, again, checkpoint inhibitors, it's also important.
- 40:18Many other monoclonal therapeutics. It's quite incredible to me that my lab
- 40:27in New York was at a cutting edge in the 80s,
- 40:33early 90s, in making human monoclonal antibodies.
- 40:36Today, 80% of the drugs under consideration by the FDA are human monoclonal antibodies.
- 40:45Right. It's incredible. Yes. And, you know. That must feel good.
- 40:52Yes and no, because back then I should have continued making human monoclonal antibodies.
- 41:00But it's interesting. thing, that was also the time when computing power increased
- 41:07exponentially at the beginning.
- 41:12Believe that, well, you can model anything three-dimensionally.
- 41:17Why do we need to go to the trouble of making human aminoclonal antibodies?
- 41:24Once you know what the antigen is, you can design a molecule that can lock in,
- 41:31need not be a monoclonal antibody.
- 41:39And and the structural crystallography and resolution you do.
- 41:45At the end, almost 40 years later, 35 years later, the truth is that nature does it right and easy.
- 41:55We are back, we have been back making monoclonality about this.
- 42:00The modeling didn't get us anywhere.
- 42:04With respect, I should say, we qualify my statement.
- 42:07Didn't get us anywhere in terms of coming up with molecules that have the precision,
- 42:15the specificity and affinity of an antibody in neutralizing something,
- 42:23in locking onto something, the antigen, again, B, D, whatever phylogenetic structure of the digester.
- 42:30We went back to antibodies.
- 42:33That's full circle. from, I'm talking about the late 80s, early 90s, so 35 years ago.
- 42:42We thought that, well, we had an incredible progress back then of structural
- 42:48studies and modeling, and now we are again.
- 42:53Again, that's incredible.
- 42:55Monogonal antibodies are useful.
- 42:58In my generation, we would think, you know, we would think making good vaccine,
- 43:05good antivirus, or good neutralized antibody therapeutic.
- 43:09But in fact-
- 43:12Antibodies are used to over your cholesterol. The most incredible application
- 43:20that one would never have thought of. It's incredible.
- 43:25Anything else, Paolo, you want to mention about your next step or anything we didn't cover?
- 43:31Yeah, my next step, I should be retiring at this point. So you are really going to retire? I'm not.
- 43:38You're not going to? Everybody tells me.
- 43:44Dr. Paolo Casale with the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
- 43:49Thank you so much for being on Pediatrics Now. Thank you.
- 43:52Music.
- 43:54My pleasure. But you're going to keep working. You're not retiring.
- 43:57I keep working. I'm not retiring.
- 43:58Don't forget to click on the link in this podcast for free credit that may include
- 44:06CME, MOC, or ethics credit, depending on our topic or podcast.
- 44:13I'm Holly Wayment. Our website is pediatricsnowpodcast.com.
- 44:18My email address is on there. Please send me a question or episode ideas.
- 44:25Thank you for listening. I'll see you next time.
- 44:30Our sister podcast is Pediatrics Now for Parents.
- 44:34It's meant to be one less thing you have to say in the exam room.