Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s 2nd Annual
Enhancing Antibody Binding and Specificity
Emerging Science and New Technologies to Fine-
Tune Antibody-Antigen Binding and Target Specificity
January 21-22, 2015

As the industry expands its repertoire of antibody drug products into new therapeutic areas, product formats and protein constructs, the control of antibody/antigen targeting, binding and specificity take on a new level of importance for researchers in this field. The second component of the PepTalk Protein Engineering & Development pipeline, Enhancing Antibody Binding and Specificity, presents innovative approaches to the modulation of binding activity, mechanism of action and difficult target challenges such as transmembrane proteins.

Robert E. Jordan, Ph.D., Senior Director and Senior Research Fellow (retired), Janssen Pharmaceuticals

Anti-IgG hinge antibodies display fine specificity for proteolytically-cleaved IgGs but are not cross-reactive with the intact IgG counterpart. Engagement of anti-hinge antibodies with cell-bound cleaved IgGs restores antibody effector function in vitro and in vivo either when elicited by vaccination or as a mAb. The findings presented here suggest a novel mechanism for enhancing antibody-mediated cell-killing effector functions with application in pathological settings where protease activity is abundant.