Those antibodies hit the antigen and induce a whole host of events, biologic events, which ultimately result in the death of the cell. We're now exploring ways to make these antibodies more effective, to make the antigens more presentable, if you would, or to make the antibody kill the cell more effectively. One of the techniques, harkening back to chemotherapy, is to use a combination of antibodies, and hopefully this is a very, very promising area.
JOHN LEONARD, MD: So we have lots of different antibodies that target -- go after different targets. They can work differently to interact with the immune system. They can flick switches in the cell differently to make the cell die, and now we're looking at combining them much as we combine chemotherapy.
Another area that is very important in B cell lymphoma is the idea of the radioactive antibodies, and we have Zevalin and Bexxar, radioactive antibodies, also against that CD20 target, but have a radioactive particle attached to them and allow the radi -- radioactive energy to be delivered to the tumor cells and less to the normal cells.
And we know that these drugs can be useful in patients with disease that's resistant to rituximab or resistant to chemotherapy. But now we're starting in clinical trials to see them used in a variety of different other settings, including earlier in the course of the disease and after chemotherapy. So how do you see -- You know, our group has done a lot of work with these agents. How do you see the most promising areas of pursuing and potentially using these radioactive antibodies for this group of patients?
