A team funded by the NIH has “isolated and mapped in detail the first comprehensive group of human antibodies targeting the measles virus.”
The findings help to reveal “previously unknown details about how the human immune system fights measles and identify specific antibodies capable of reducing the virus to undetectable levels in an animal model. The research could serve as the foundation for development of a measles treatment.”
As HPN has reported on multiple times, measles cases have increased in the U.S. and across the world. At least 72 outbreaks of the disease have been recorded in the U.S. alone since January 2025. No safe and effective therapies have received regulatory approval in the U.S. to this point, which leaves “people who cannot safely receive the vaccine…with a lack of medical options.”
The research team “isolated memory B cells—the immune cells that retain long-term ‘memory’ of past infections or vaccinations—from a donor who had been vaccinated for measles three times. From those cells, the team engineered and purified more than 100 individual human monoclonal antibodies, each targeting a specific site on the measles virus.”
The identification of targets for antibodies challenges a “long-held assumption in the field. Scientists had believed protection against measles was driven almost exclusively by antibodies targeting the H protein, with antibodies against the F protein playing a minor role. This study found that antibodies against both proteins can confer powerful, independent protection.”
