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by asdkl234890 4403 days ago
* Immunoglobulins (aka antibodies) are important for preventing infection and thus long term health but they would be difficult to impossible to produce synthetically.*

Even with hybridomas?

1 comments

Yes, there are ways of producing antibodies outside the body. One could argue whether hybridomas (essentially immortalized b-cells used to produce a specific antibody) constitute truly synthetic production. I considered mentioning them, but decided it was probably more in depth answer than the GP's question really needed.

Since you asked though, I don't think hybridomas really solve the difficulty of reconstituting a persons antibodies ex vivo. A healthy human has somewhere around a trillion different antibodies circulating. I would conservatively estimate that the research community has produced a few thousand different hybridomas since they were first described in 1975. The problem of scaling that or any other in vitro technique to the trillions seems unlikely to be solved.

Now, I get into the domain of wild speculation. What you'd really need is a single system capable of producing a nearly unlimited variety of different antibodies. The most viable option to my mind would be a transgenic mammal (let's say a goat since it's easy to get antibodies from milk) which would produce humanized antibodies. However, given the relatively small demand for such treatments, I think any such efforts are unlikely.