Synbiosafe

HYBLIB: Human monoclonal antibodies from a library of hybridomas

Duration: 48 months

Coordinator: German Cancer Research Centre (Germany)

Contact Person:

Partners:

• Eucodis (Austria)
• Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Czech Republic)
• French Institute of Health and Medical Research (France)
• Göttingen University (Germany)

Project Description:

Unlike monoclonal antibodies from hybridomas, recombinant antibodies from bacteria usually suffer from poor stability and yield. Due to surface displayed antibody molecules, recombinant antibodies are easily screened, though. In order to combine both advantages, HYBLIB plans to construct a library of >10(+6) different hybridomas by consecutive homologous and specific recombinations, with all of the hybridomas descending from one single cell. Each cell displays >100.000 of “its” specific antibody molecules on the cell surface. Therefore, the library should be easily screened for low to medium affinity human antibodies specific for almost all antigens. (WP2) Antibodies of higher affinities will be generated by the apparatus responsible for somatic hypermutation currently being deciphered, whereby FACS-screening offers an especially easy method to compare affinities. The ancestor cell line of the antibody library is engineered to emit signals in response to antigen binding, thus allowing for the labelling free detection of antigen-specific antibodies. Outlook: The combined efforts described above might evolve into a method that supersedes the current state of the art in the production of monoclonal antibodies.