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For more than 20 years, Aldevron’s Antibody Discovery Group has delivered transformative solutions to the therapeutic, R&D, and diagnostic antibody segments. The group’s best-in-class immunization technology combined with its advanced cell-based screening technologies enable efficient antibody discovery against a wide range of targets, including transmembrane proteins, such as G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) or ion channels.
Genetic immunization enables the development of antibodies against almost any protein target directly from DNA, a sequence, or an accession number—eliminating the need for purified protein or peptides. Aldevron’s genetic immunization technologies are ideal for the generation of antibodies recognizing conformational epitopes, a prerequisite for functional and therapeutic applications. This supports the generation of highly specific antibodies in the low mM to pM affinity range.
Aldevron now applies its genetic immunization capability not only to its highly efficient hybridoma technology but also to two advanced, complementary single B-cell platforms, the Beacon® platform from Berkeley Lights, and Genovac Nano, an in-house-developed microfluidic platform. These offer more efficient sampling of the antibody repertoire and significantly shorter timelines.
“Adding the Berkeley Lights Beacon platform complements and exponentially adds power to our existing proprietary hybridoma and Genovac Nano single B-cell platforms,” says Brian Walters, President of Aldevron’s Antibody Business Unit. “These robust technologies allow our clients to pursue a wide range of challenging targets. The added single B-cell screening and assay functionality provide multiple approaches to support our clients’ antibody discovery objectives and will allow our team to more rapidly generate a significant number of antibodies where conventional methods fail.”
Customized Workflow
All projects begin with a comprehensive analysis of the target to develop an immunization and screening strategy tailored to client objectives and the target. The identified DNA sequence or sequences are then cloned into proprietary immunization and screening vectors. Identification of antibodies directed against the native epitopes is achieved using transfected mammalian cells as reporter cells, which present the target antigen on the cell surface. Specific binders are identified by a fluorescently labeled secondary (anti-IgG) antibody using high-throughput imaging approaches.
The workflow can diverge into one of three options or operate in parallel. Hybridomas can be pursued along with both single B-cell platforms that allow automated identification and retrieval of target-specific B cells for downstream molecular biology steps.
Aldevron’s advanced hybridoma platform includes multiple efficient technologies and features a semi-solid, media-based clone-picking system. In almost all cases, semi-solid media-derived clones can be characterized as monoclonal, reducing project development timeline and cost.
Antibody discovery using single B-cell platforms can identify and isolate functional antibody-producing B cells in less than one day, eliminating weeks of screening work. Each cell is tracked so that the cell-specific phenotype can be linked to its genotype. Once individual target cells are identified, the cells can be exported for cDNA synthesis, cloning, and sequencing followed by the production of recombinant antibodies in a mammalian expression system.
Aldevron takes advantage of the Beacon platform’s superior capabilities in single-cell seeding (“penning”) and cell- and bead-based in-channel assays for identification of candidates with certain characteristics during multiple rounds of binding and cross-reactivity screening. The complementary Genovac Nano platform constitutes screening of a much greater number of plasma cells to increase the chances for identification of specific antibodies against challenging targets when only a single binding test is required.
“Aldevron is driven by a passion to enable our clients to make therapeutic breakthroughs that in the end will help patients,” says Walters. “Both of our single B-cell platforms offer rapid screening for specificity of a vast number of antibody candidates. As experts in antibody discovery, our Antibody Discovery Group has accomplished upwards of 3,000 projects with hundreds of documented peer-reviewed publications. We are pleased that many of our clients have advanced antibodies discovered by Aldevron to clinical trials.”
Antibody-discovery projects are offered on a fee-for-service basis with no downstream license or royalty fees.
Learn more about Aldevron’s license and royalty-free antibody discovery today.
aldevron.com/antibodydiscovery