October 20, 2016
11am EST to 12pm EST

Sponsored by

Webinar Description:

Multipass membrane proteins represent the largest and most valuable class of drug targets in human disease. However due to their complex structure, few therapeutic antibodies have successfully targeted them to date. Antibody discovery against membrane protein targets presents a number of technical challenges. Bottlenecks include obtaining sufficient native antigen, high evolutionary conservation, presentation of small extracellular regions to the immune system, and inability to recover rare conformational antibodies with functional properties.

Our panelists for this webinar will provide an overview of the most pressing issues for antibody discovery against membrane protein targets, and means to overcome them. Strategies to be discussed include antigen engineering for high expression, use of divergent animal hosts to overcome conservation, and B-cell isolation to recover rare antibodies. The webinar also addresses characterization strategies that are important for lead selection and development, including membrane proteome-wide specificity profiling to reduce safety failure and epitope mapping for new intellectual property.

Speakers:

Dr. Rucker will discuss technologies for characterizing membrane protein antibodies for supporting IND and IP filings. These include antibody profiling across the membrane proteome to identify off-target interactions, deconvolution of targets for orphan antibodies, and high-resolution epitope mapping on complex targets for generating new intellectual property.

Ross Chambers, Ph.D.

Director of Antibody Discovery

Integral Molecular

Joseph Rucker, Ph.D.

VP of Research and Development

Integral Molecular

Dr. Chambers will provide an overview of the technical complexities associated with antibody discovery against membrane protein targets and strategies to overcome these obstacles. These include the use of engineered antigens, concentration of membrane proteins on virus-like particles (VLPs), DNA immunization, use of divergent host species, and microfluidic B-cell cloning.