Therapeutic Antibodies for Infectious Diseases: Recent Past, Present, and Future

A central goal of modern infectious disease research is to discover safe prophylactic vaccines that can prevent infection. When this is not possible, or when preventive vaccines are still in development, it is critical to have interventions that can mitigate the spread of the disease both within infected individuals and in the population. In this short review, we explore the recent history of therapeutic antibody use, highlighting antibodies used over the last five years to treat COVID-19. We outline some of the challenges in developing antibodies rapidly in response to pandemic threats and suggest that emerging technologies for AI-driven design may offer exciting opportunities for the development of a broad class of protein therapies.