[ONLINE] iMed.ULisboa - CiQUS joint Seminar

Affiliation: Cathedratic Professor at Faculdade de Farmácia, Universidade de Lisboa, Group Leader of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology Lab, Research Institutes for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa). 

Website: https://imed.ulisboa.pt/members/joao-goncalves/ 

Abstract: 

Antibody drugs became an increasingly important element of the therapeutic landscape. Their accomplishment has been driven by many unique properties, in particular by their very high specificity and selectivity, in contrast to the off-target liabilities of small molecules (SMs). Antibodies can bring additional functionality to the table with their ability to interact with the immune system, and this can be further manipulated with advances in antibody engineering. In this seminar we will show antibody engineering technologies that were developed and explored to obtain chosen characteristics of selected leading candidates against viruses and cancer such as high affinity, low immunogenicity, improved functionality, improved protein production, improved stability, and others. Discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies encompasses in vivo immunization, synthetic libraries, and surface display methodologies. To overcome some of their limitations, several platforms in invitro and in cells have been developed. Moreover, these platforms aim to replicate in the bench both primary and secondary antibody diversification mechanisms that occur in vivo. We will describe the latest strategies that have been used to mirror both naive and affinity-maturated antibody repertoire. We will also discuss strategies to deliver proteins and antibodies intracellularly to explore future integration of chemical biology and biologics to manipulate gene expression.