Genetic and Process Optimizations for Effective Screening and Functional Production of Novel Therapeutic Antibody Fragments

The application range of antibodies in medicine and biotechnology is broad and there is a huge progress in the design and selection of new variants with novel properties. Affitech is a relative young biotech company founded in 1997, and is still establish ed in the international forefront of discovering and developing the new generation of drugs based on fully human antibodies for cancer and other key disease areas. This project is cooperation with the research organization SINTEF, and with NTNU as a discu ssion partner. The project partners have collaborated on a previous research project resulting in generation of both commercially and scientifically valuable results related to production of antibody fragments. All three parties are also collaborating on an ongoing KMB project on heterologous expression, and the current project should thus represent a further strengthening of this research cooperation. This project will cover two major research areas; screening and production of new antibody fragments, bo th representing core research areas at Affitech. The expected project outcome is improved and new technologies for screening and concomitant production of novel antibody fragments. In particular, current screening technology represents a major bottleneck for the discovery of new antibody fragments. More effective screening methods will contribute to more comprehensive and faster discovery of medically important antibody fragments, and better production processes will bring such novel products faster to th e market. Accordingly, the economical and competitive impact for Affitech of this project is high. Moreover, the inclusion of also larger antibody fragments represents something new for Affitech, and the commercial aspect of also extending their product r ange to include such new products is considerable. The project will benefit heavily on the accumulated competence and well-developed infrastructure at our partner SINTEF.