The COVID-19 pandemic forced medical experts to explore different ways to help slow the spread and create vaccines, and one of those techniques involved the infusion on monoclonal antibodies to help patients fight infections. Monoclonal antibodies are lab-made antibodies that help the patient overcome infections and illnesses, but the hope is that the same technology may eventually be able to replace opioids and help calm chronic pain conditions.

Research is currently being led by Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy and James Trimmer, two professors in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the University of California Davis School of Medicine. They’ve also employed several experts to work on their team, including members who have worked to turn tarantula venom into pain medication. The team was awarded a $1.5 million grant earlier this year by the National Institutes of Health’s HEAL Initiative, which hopes to develop solutions for the nation’s opioid crisis.

Hoping To Curb Opioid Use

Addictive opioids are a problem here in the US and worldwide. According to the CDC National Center for Health Statistics, there were 107,622 drug overdose deaths in 2021, up from 93,655 in 2020. Researchers hope that alternative therapies can help to quell chronic pain without turning to potentially dangerous medications.

“Recent breakthroughs in structural and computational biology — using computers to understand and model biological systems — have set the stage for applying new approaches to create antibodies as superior therapeutic candidates to treat chronic pain,” said Yarov-Yarovoy. “Monoclonal antibodies are the fastest growing sector of the pharmaceutical industry and have many advantages over classical small molecule drugs,” added Trimmer.

Trimmer and his lab team have created thousands of different mononclonal antibodies for various purposes over the years, but this will be the first time he turns his attention towards creating antibodies designed for pain relief. And while the prospect of treating chronic pain with the help of monoclonal antibodies may be new, the technology is already being used to treat other ailments. The Food and Drug Administration has already approved monoclonal antibodies to help prevent and treat certain types of migraines.

“Nerve cells are responsible for transmitting pain signals in the body. Voltage-gated sodium ion channels in nerve cells are the key transmitters of pain,” explained Yarov-Yarovoy. “We aim to create antibodies that will bind to these specific transmission sites at the molecular level, inhibiting their activity and stopping the transmission of pain signals.”

If successful, researchers say the antibodies will fit into these sodium ion channels like a lock into a key. These antibodies will then stop the channels from sending pain signals but not interfere with other signals sent through the nerve cells.

So while there is optimism that these antibodies could be harnessed to help treat chronic pain, researchers say that viable human antibodies are still years away. First they’ll need to create antibodies to be tested on lab-created neutral tissue, so hope for a “pain vaccine” is still years away.

One of the most exciting aspects of monoclanal antibodies is that they can circulate in the bloodstream for an extended period before they are broken down by the body. While non-steroidial anti-inflammatory medications are broken down quickly by the body, researchers believe monoclanal antibodies will remain in a person’s system for a month or longer before they are broken down by the body. The team hopes that this means that patients would only need to self-inject with the monoclanal antibodies once a month.

“For patients with chronic pain, that’s exactly what you need,” Yarov-Yarovoy said. “They experience pain, not for days, but weeks and months. The expectation is that the circulating antibodies will be able to provide sustained pain relief for weeks.”