The antibody engineering field is steadily evolving harnessing improvements in discovery engines and computational methods. Together with collaborators at OUS/UiO (Norway) and John Hopkins (US), we here describe a very powerful combination of the highly efficient NextCore platform directed by use of structural modelling for engineering guidance. This combined approach allowed identification of one of the highest affinity fully human TCR-Like antibodies reported to date (Kd ~20 pM). TCR-like antibodies represent a unique type of engineered antibodies with specificity toward pHLA – a ligand normally restricted to the sensitive recognition by T cells. Our method outlines an efficient and general method for development of this promising class of antibodies, which should facilitate their utility including translation to human therapy.
Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1093/protein/gzac005