Breathing More Easily?

Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) are relatively common and dangerous lung disorders. They've tended to be treated, respectively, with inhalers and steroids. A King's College, London study now suggests that benralizumab treatment can be a 'gamechanger' for these conditions. Benralizumab is a monoclonal antibody, injected to target eosinophil white blood cells. Monoclonal antibodies are very specific polypeptides that 'lock on' to particular proteins. Eosinophils (cells that take up the Eosin dye), are involved in the body's inflammatory responses. These white blood cells appear overactive in asthma and COPD. Injection of benralizumab, reduced lung inflammation to a greater extent than steroid tablets (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/27/doctors-hail-first-breakthrough-in-asthma-and-copd-treatment-in-50-years). Steroids, being 'immunosuppressive' reduce all antibodies. Benralizumab treatment, effectively, administers a single, tailor-made antibody. Inflammation, aided by the eosinophils, is an important innate immune response. This response, however, appears to be excessive in asthma and COPD patients. It seems to have parallels to autoimmune diseases, where the body attacks itself. Benralizumab is, consequently, a very different kind of treatment.