Adolfo Cotter,MD

Nanoantibodies also known as nanobodies, have advantage over full size antibodies that they are more stable, aggregate less, and they can penetrate very small locations. There are currently attempts to make them cross the blood brain barrier ( BBB ). An idea that I suggest is to bind a nanobody to a nanoparticle, so the nanoparticle can help them cross the BBB. I think this is doable and I invite interested scientists to try it.

They also show very good specificity, which can be useful to treat cancer for example. One of the problems with chemotherapy for cancer is its lack of specificity, and in consequence it shows many side effects. Other therapeutic applications that look promising are: Alzheimer’s disease by targeting amyloid plaques, and Parkinson’s disease by targeting alpha-synuclein. 

They also seem useful for molecular imaging as a probe for PET or SPECT. They seem to show a good uptake. A good paper in the topic is the following:

Dmitrov DS, Engineered CH2 domains (nanoantibodies), MAbs 2009 Vol 1 Issue 1 26-28

Adolfo Cotter, MD

Aug 08/2010