CD Laboratory for Innovative Immunotherapeutics
Abstract
Immunoglobulin-based molecules are one of the most prominent groups of therapeutic agents used today, applicable in conditions ranging from cancer, autoimmune disease, inflammation and infective disease. The reason for the intense development in the antibody field is the success of antibody based agents as therapeutic molecules, resulting from their precise specificity for the target, favorable pharmacokinetic properties and their ability to engage the executive arm of the immune system. In the last decade, the evolution the bispecific antibodies has further increased the potency of such therapeutic agents and expanded the horizons of their applications by endowing them with novel biological modes of action or by enhancing their selectivity. Following classical antibody molecules also minimized immunoglobulin formats combining the targeting properties with the ability to mobilize the immune system, have paved their way into use in man. The central study object of CD Laboratory for Innovative Immunotherapeutics are antibody and antibody-like fragment based technologies, encompassing the development of antibody libraries, enhancing their biological activity with cytotoxic agents, or empowering them with novel functions by assigning them an additional specificity for a novel target. There is immense unexplored potential in the design of antibody molecules for improved functionality, documented in the intense research aimed at novel targeting modes and the improvement of their effector and pharmacokinetic properties. The research aim of the CD Laboratory for Innovative Immunotherapeutics exceeds the quest for new potential therapeutic targeting agents in the effort to engineer molecules with superior biological properties. The generation of libraries, amenable as a source of worthful binding agents, and optimization of selection strategies are the basic operations, permanently expediting the discovery process, however not the final goal of research. Central is the ambition to realize the potential of the novel architecture of the active moieties in the design of potent molecules capable of specific targeting and exerting biological function upon either the delivery of the toxin to the target cell or the engagement of cellular killing to eradicate target cells. Engineering of such agents requires an integral approach based on molecular modeling, use of various display systems optimal for selection of binding agents and their precise analysis, expression systems assuring a secure source of recombinant molecules, powerful analytics methods for their in-depth structural characterization that allows the improvement of their physicochemical properties, and contemporary tools of cellular biology to analyze their effect in vitro. Technical realization should provide their validation with a proof of concept of their activity in in vivo models.
Antibody Libraries Bispecific T-Cell Receptors Antibody-Drug Conjugates Bispecific Antibodies Pichia Surface Display
Publikationen
Project staff
Gordana Wozniak-Knopp
Dipl.-Biol. Dr.rer.nat. Gordana Wozniak-Knopp
gordana.wozniak@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-79868
Project Leader
01.03.2016 - 31.12.2023
Lina Heistinger
Dipl.-Ing. Lina Heistinger Ph.D.
lina.heistinger@boku.ac.at
Project Staff
01.03.2016 - 31.12.2023
Marc Schuh
Dipl.-Ing. Marc Schuh
marc.schuh@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-89413
Project Staff
01.03.2016 - 31.12.2023