High throughput camelid antibody screening as drug discovery platform

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Monoclonal antibodies are used for treatment of a wide range of diseases from cancer to infectious diseases. However, development of antibodies with high affinity and specificity is still time-consuming, labor-intensiveand unpredictable. Abzyme Therapeutics LLC is actively developing animal-free antibody discovery platforms to accelerate generation of therapeutic antibodies. In Phase I, we will create a so-called Self-Diversifying Antibody Library or SDALib as a monoclonal antibody generating system that will provide a diverse array of complete antibodies in vitro, without using immunization. The main feature of the system is the ability to self-generate a cell library with diversified antibodies by means of hypermutation induction in antibody encoding genes. Using the SDALib system, generation time of monoclonal antibodies against any antigen will be reduced to about two weeks as compared to 6 to 9 months normally required using conventional techniques. The platfor