PEGS Europe 2023 – Portugal
Conference dates: NOVEMBER 14-16, 2023
Location: Lisbon Congress Center, Lisbon, Portugal
Booth: 228
Speaking session
Title: Analysis of the Diverse Antigenic Landscape of the Malaria Invasion Protein RH5 by HT-SPR
Speaker: Kirsty McHugh, PhD, Senior Postdoctoral Scientist, University of Oxford
Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Time: 9:30-10:00 am WET
Location: “Analytical Characterization of Biotherapeutics” track
Abstract: The Plasmodium falciparum RH5 protein is the leading blood-stage malaria vaccine target. However, the features of human vaccine-induced antibody responses that confer protection against red blood cell invasion are not well defined. Here, using HT-SPR we characterize over 200 human IgG monoclonal antibodies induced by the most advanced RH5 vaccine. This comprehensive dataset provides a framework to guide rational design of next-generation vaccines and prophylactic antibodies to protect against blood-stage malaria.
Title: Heavy Chain-Only Transgenic Chickens Produce Human Antibodies with Robust Immune Repertoires and High-Affinity Binding
Speaker: Phil Leighton, PhD, Senior Director, Molecular Biology, OmniAb
Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Time: 13:50-14:20 pm WET
Location: “Advancing Bispecifics and Combination Therapy to the Clinic” track
Abstract: We have developed an engineered chicken that produces VHH antibodies with human variable regions. In these birds, the human VH contains framework mutations to provide stability and a truncated light chain that facilitates immunoglobulin secretion in the absence of the VL domain. Productive B-cell development is observed, and when immunized with various targets, antigen-specific VHH offered a diverse repertoire of sequences, broad epitope coverage, and binding affinities reaching single-digit nM.
Title: Accelerating Bispecifics Discovery with the Alloy Common Light Chain Fully Human Transgenic Mouse Platform
Speaker: Kent Bondensgaard, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Antibody Discovery Service, Alloy Therapeutics
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2023
Time: 12:50-13:20 WET
Location: “Engineering Bispecifics Antibodies” track
Abstract: Alloy bispecific discovery services integrates best-in-class platforms with world class scientists to serve as an extension of your R&D team. Building on industry leading mouse platforms for fully human antibody discovery, Alloy has created Common Light Chain strains, ATX-CLC, to build bispecifics with better developability profiles by solving heavy and light chain pairing. Leveraging ATX-CLC Alloy supports bispecific discovery through format engineering and functional assessment to move candidates forward rapidly.
Poster session
Title: Large-scale Characterization of Drug Candidates Against Transmembrane Receptors 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 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.