Monoclonal antibodies have become one of humanity’s most powerful, multi-use tools in biology and medicine. Once the field of immunology established that they could be produced to bind very specifically to almost any suitable substance, science has had a means of detecting and/or purifying those substances or, in the case of viruses, identifying the antibodies that will serve as effective treatments. And in these times of pandemic, tools to detect viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 at the point of care and produce novel vaccines are more important than ever.
Image: Dr. James Crowe, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee