Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics – San Diego
Conference dates: DECEMBER 4-8, 2022
Location: Marriott Marquis San Diego
Booth: 200
Speaking sessions
Title: Optimizing Antibody Lead Selection with Sequential Enrichment/Depletion Analysis Using AbXtract™
Speaker: Laura Spector, PhD, Bioinformatics Scientist, Specifica
Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Time: 1:45pm PST
Abstract: Antibody discovery campaigns proceed through iterative rounds of selective pressure to achieve desired properties such as strong affinity and specificity to a desired epitope. We demonstrate how tracing clone enrichment scores and sequence features with next-generation sequencing across distinct sort populations (e.g., decreasing concentrations of antigen) from yeast display can be leveraged in predictive models to improve lead prioritization and/or study design.
Title: Using Defined Human CDRs in Antibody Discovery and Optimization
Speaker: Andrew Bradbury, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Specifica
Date: Thursday, December 8, 2022
Time: 1:30pm PST
Abstract: We have previously shown that antibody libraries in which natural CDRs, purged of sequence liabilities, are embedded within clinical antibody scaffolds can generate antibodies with affinities matching or exceeding those found during natural immune responses and without the developability issues commonly associated with in vitro derived antibodies. This talk will discuss the successful extension of this concept to additional scaffolds and the improvement of lead antibodies. Unlike most affinity maturation methods, the use of defined human CDRs allows the simultaneous improvement of both affinity and developability.
Poster session
Title: Characterizing Challenging Membrane Targets Using HT-SPR
Abstract: Membrane targets make up a substantial part of the overall “undruggable” therapeutic space that has recently garnered widespread interest. Despite encouraging improvements in the tools to screen for therapeutics against membrane-bound targets, there are still many practical limitations owing to the challenges of working with proteins that are not highly stable outside of the cell-membrane environment. High-throughput surface plasmon resonance (HT-SPR) is a powerful technique that is transforming characterization workflows and enabling a greater breadth and depth of information for up to thousands of drug candidates. Here we demonstrate the ability to quantitatively assess binding kinetics for panels of antibodies against membrane receptors in several formats. This workflow highlights opportunities to perform detailed binding characterization for up to thousands of drug candidates in parallel.