West Coast Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
san francisco
27 SEPTEMBER, 2022
Welcome to hubXchange’s West Coast Antibody Therapeutics Xchange 2022, bringing together executives from pharma and biotech to address and find solutions to the key issues faced in developing antibody therapeutics.
Discussion topics will cover Target Selection, Lead Identification & Optimization, Formats & Scaffolds, Bi/Multi-specifics and Emerging Technologies.
Take advantage of this unique highly interactive meeting format designed for maximum engagement, collaboration and networking with your peers.
NOTE: This will be an In-Person event
VENUE DETAILS: DoubleTree by Hilton San Francisco Airport Hotel, 835 Airport Blvd., Burlingame CA 94010-9949
Target Selection
Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics
More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.
VP of Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
- To which extent the therapeutic modality (conventional antibody, antibody fragment, ADC, CAR-T, RPT, etc.) affects the target selection? Since companies tends to focus on a specific biologic platforms (often with IP protection), are viable targets selected to better match the therapeutic modality, or should the target be selected upfront and the optimal therapeutic approach tailored to the antigen biology?
- To which extent a crowded competitive space affects your target selection? For example, repurposing well validated antigens (Her2, PSMA, CEA, etc.) often attracted substantial VC funding. Should the industry put more focus on novel target discovery, or exploring all the options for old targets?
- How much of your target discovery rely on external innovation through academic collaborations or joint development programs? What are the business/operational/legal challenges presented by such collaborations.
- Is de-novo target discovery part of your process? And what are the costs (time and financial), and risks associated with committing to the discovery and validation of novel targets? What techniques do you employ to discover novel targets and how do you reliably validate preclinically for its expression in patients?
Director of Research, ImaginAb
Alessandro Mascioni works as Director of Research at ImginAb. A Los Angeles based biotech where he oversees the development of antibody fragments for use as toxic payload delivery in cancer radiotherapy. Alessandro has 12 years of experience in project leadership, target selection, and biologics discovery and development in multiple therapeutic areas with special emphasis to cancer and immuno-oncology. Before joining ImaginAb, Alessandro worked at the Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation in Boston, where he participated to the screening and evaluation of numerous external opportunities, and co-authored research proposals in collaboration with academic key opinion leaders.
Including proteins in antibody discovery with polyclonal antibody sequencing
- When conventional antibody discovery techniques fail, what do you do?
- Can your library of polyclonal antibody reagents be the fuel for your next discovery
campaign? - Can you complement your existing programs with serum proteomics?
Director, International Business Development, Rapid Novor
Anthony has been heading the business development at Rapid Novor for nearly 6 years, merging his previous 8 years of experience in the business roles with a strong passion for biomedical research, stemming from his training in biomedical engineering. His current efforts are focused on the growth of the REpAb™, HDX-MS epitope mapping, and SPR Kinetic analysis solutions with pharmaceutical and biotech companies globally. His partnerships are focused on using REpAb in patients or animal models to sequence monoclonal antibodies from polyclonal sera, as well as immune system profiling using NovorIg, the team’s NGS based analysis to monitor the relative quantity of specific antibodies over time. Anthony’s a hobby farmer and an ongoing researcher of biotech business in his spare time.
Spotlight Presentation-
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
- Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
- Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
- Next generational methods of driving diversity
Vice President, Clients Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
Selecting target pairs for bispecific therapeutic antibody development
- We see exciting bispecific therapeutic antibodies hit the clinic, but how are early target pair choices typically made?
- Do you start with a favorite bispecific format and MoA (a hammer) and go looking for a pair of targets (nails) that can be addressed effectively? Or the other way around?
- Do you start with a favorite target pair then try everything to get a BsAb to work? Or do you focus on achieving a specific biological effect and plan to try many different target pairs to get it?
- Have you identified any strategies for predicting which targets will work well as a pair based on pre-existing data for each individual target?
- Do you primarily focus on obligate bispecific mechanisms of action? Under what circumstances or with which types of targets might you consider using a bispecific molecule when a combination of mAbs could potentially do the job instead?
- If using bispecific antibodies for dual-targeting approaches, what are the key factors influencing your choice of AND versus OR binding logic gates?
Senior Scientist, Rondo Therapeutics
Starlynn Clarke leads the preclinical biology group at Rondo Therapeutics, an IO-focused biopharmaceutical
company developing innovative bispecific therapeutic antibodies for treating solid tumors. Starlynn has worked in discovery and preclinical development in the fields of oncology and immunology at several biotechnology start-up companies, including Frontier Medicines and Caribou Biosciences. As a founding member of the preclinical biology
team at Teneobio, a highly successful multispecific therapeutic antibody company, she contributed to several
bispecific antibody programs currently in clinical trials. Starlynn completed her PhD in the lab of Charles Craik at UCSF, where she studied novel viral and fungal host-pathogen interactions.
- We investigated whether superior anti-PD-L1 antibodies with greater diversity, affinity, and/or
functional activity could be generated using the Beacon® platform (Berkeley Lights, Inc., (BLI))
as a single B cell cloning (BCC) process which could circumvent a labor-intensive and time-
consuming Hybridoma process. - We screened 33,377 antibody secreting plasma B cells (PCs) onto OptoSelect TM chips and
identified over 200 antibodies with binding to PD-L1, and of those, 35 antibodies blocked
binding of PD-1 to PD-L1 (using Image-based analysis). - For the traditional approach, 13,536 hybridoma cells were screened with standard RBA assay for
identifying potential blockers. - Overall, we purified 44 hybridoma antibodies and 24 BCC antibodies which were characterized
for FACS binding, receptor blocking, epitope binning using the Carterra LSA and affinity by
Biacore 8K and Carterra LSA. - We found that 2 antibodies from Beacon and 3 antibodies from hybridoma had triple-digit pM
affinity. Among these, 2 BCC antibodies retained their potency and diversity while none for
hybridoma (when compared to Benchmark antibodies).
Director Biologics Discovery, ChemPartner
Andreas Loos, PhD, has joined ChemPartner in 2021 as Director of Biologics Discovery and he currently leads the Biologics Discovery Team at ChemPartner’s South San Francisco site. The team was one of the
first adopters of BLI’s Beacon technology and successfully uses the platform since 2019 to conduct antibody discovery projects. Prior to joining ChemPartner, Andreas has led an antibody discovery and
assay development group at Aridis Pharmaceuticals. During his PhD and post-doctoral training in Gent (Belgium), Heidelberg (Germany) and Vienna (Austria), he studied production and post-translational modifications of biologics in plants.
Lead Identification & Optimization
Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics
More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.
VP of Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Challenging targets: Opportunity, vs effort, vs risk: General strategies vs custom approaches: In the end you want the best antibody, no matter what
- Native protein vs strategic enhancements: What advantage can you get from each?
- Are obligate membrane embedded proteins generally of low immunogicity, or just rare?
- Is it possible to make strong epitope mimetics in the form of peptides?
- Can DNA immunization add or even substitute for Protein Immunizations; what makes it immunogenic?
- When should display methods be used? Are they now a true substitute for in vivo derived Abs? Are the newest techniques for Ag preparation really good enough for this application?
Vice President – Site Head, Zai Lab US LLC
Peter Brams is an experienced antibody generator with over 30 years of focus on making human antibodies. Peter started in academia, then worked at some of the top antibody companies in the country: IDEC pharmaceuticals, Medarex, BMS and now Zai Lab (US).
He has worked on all aspects of the antibody generation process: target identification, Ag design, human Ig tg mouse designs, immunization strategies, antibody capture strategies, including the use of molecular biology protocols, and Automation protocols. The groups he led generated more than 10 commercially available Abs: e.g. Ofatumumab, Anifrolumab and Nivolumab.
Peter has authored and co-authored over 100 current patents and patent applications.
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
Next generational methods of driving diversity
Vice President, Client Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
- Are there soluble targets available for selections and screening?
- How do we access rare or cryptic epitopes for Ab discovery?
- How do we maximize the number of hits in order to increase the probability of success?
- Does binding translate to desired function? Is early-on HT screening for functional activity possible?
Associate Director- Antibody Discovery, Bristol Myers Squibb
Raphael is Associate Director of Antibody Discovery at BMS in Redwood City, CA. He was previously Director of Antibody Engineering at LakePharma, CA, and held various roles at XOMA’s Antibody Discovery & Engineering. Raphael was a postdoctoral fellow in Jim Marks’s lab at UCSF and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology under George Georgiou at the University of Texas, Austin. He completed his M.Sc. in Biotechnology at Tel-Aviv University following a B.Sc. in Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He grew up in Athens, Greece, and loves to bike, read, or spend quality time with his family.
4:10 – 4:40pm
Poster Session: The PIONEER library – a new player in the therapeutic antibody discovery space
- The largest functional Fab antibody library available
- Incorporates SpyDisplay, a new selection system based on SpyTag technology
- Presentation of the design, features, and data
Technical Sales Manager Custom Antibodies, Bio-Rad Laboratories
Paul Royle is the technical sales manager for Bio-Rad’s Custom Antibody Service (HuCAL®) and
has been with Bio-Rad’s antibody division for over 9 years. Prior to this he worked in an
immunology diagnostics company for almost 7 years. Paul holds a degree and PhD from the
University of Nottingham (UK), and has post-doctoral research experience from the University of
Warwick (UK).
- How are you identifying and validating your targets?
- Does the novelty of a target influence your choice of discovery platform (in vivo vs in vitro based discovery) and/or route (in-house vs CRO)? If so, how do you choose?
- What are some strategies for overcoming lack of reagents and developing functional assays?
- How are you identifying biomarkers and in vivo models?
Staff Scientist – Antibody Discovery, Alector
Angie Yee is a Staff Scientist in the Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering group at Alector, a company pioneering the discovery and development of new therapeutic treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. Angie currently leads the in vivo antibody discovery group, which she helped to establish in 2016. Prior to joining Alector, she was a part of antibody discovery teams at Rinat Pfizer and Genentech as well as clinical teams at UCSF.
Formats & Scaffolds
Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics
More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.
VP of Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
- CDR-H3 – amino acid frequencies and length
- Synthetic library vs naive library
- Phage vs Mammalian (1012 vs 108)
- Need smartly designed library for mammalian display
- Antigen-specific repertoires
Chief Scientific Officer, Fusion Antibodies
Richard Buick has more than 19 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. After graduating with a 1st Class Honours degree in Genetics, he spent 4 years at Randox Laboratories, discovering novel antibodies for diagnostics from synthetic libraries. Richard joined Fusion Antibodies in 2002, where he was responsible for overseeing the Company’s Contract Research Services and production of all reagents required for the research and development of internal drug assets. Richard has a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in Immunology. He joined the Company as a Director and was appointed CTO in 2011, managing all scientific projects and Fusion Antibodies’ patent portfolios. In addition, Richard has, since 2015, been appointed as a legal expert witness in a number of drug patent dispute cases.
Choosing the right platform for developability optimization
- How to optimize antibody sequence without introducing unnatural mutations?
- How to thoroughly explore natural antibody sequence space around your lead?
- Humanizing and optimizing your lead at the same time – pitfalls?
- How do you exclude potential developability dipeptide motifs?
Chief Scientific Officer, Twist Biopharma
Aaron is CSO of Twist Bioscience and leads our Twist Biopharma team. Prior to Twist, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of LakePharma, leading the California Antibody Center, which discovers novel antibody therapeutics for its clients. He also oversaw all discovery research functions both as Vice President of Protein Sciences at Surrozen, and previously, as Vice President of Research at Sutro Biopharma, Inc. He also held director level positions at both Oncomed and Dyax Corp.
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
- Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
- Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
- Next generational methods of driving diversity
Vice President, Client Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
4:10 – 4:40pm
Poster Session: Lead Identification & Optimization Topic Antibody affinity engineering (STEM) and rabbit based mAb development (RabWiz) platforms
- A revolutionary approach to affinity maturation that differs from conventional CDR walking methods by using iterative stages of selection and library construction to access exceptionally high diversity
- Developability is integrated into every stage of our platform, from predictive model-based design of affinity maturation libraries to incorporating stability and polyspecificity filters into our selection strategies
- Our rabbit mAb discovery platform outperforms hybridoma and B cell cloning methods by using our patented library construction method WizAmp to build immune Fab-phage libraries, enabling unique selection strategies to obtain rare clones, including cell panning, epitope masking, etc
- Our in-house target to clinic platform includes rabbit mAb discovery, humanization, affinity maturation, and developability optimization. We have successfully used this to develop COVID-19 therapeutic mAbs that neutralize all variants through BA.2.75 and show strong protection in animal models
Chief Scientific Officer, Abwiz Bio
As COO/CSO, Toshi Maruyama is responsible for research, development, and manufacture of products. Prior to founding Abwiz Bio, he acquired his skills in phage display in the lab of Dennis Burton at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA and has held several senior scientist and management roles at Alexion Antibody Technologies, Calmune, and Nitto Denko Technical, USA. He has over 25 years of antibody development experience in academia and pharma. Toshi earned his MD and PhD degrees at Tokyo Medical and Dental University.
Director, Antibody Discovery & Engineering, Abwiz Bio
As Director of Antibody Discovery and Engineering, Kevin helped develop our patent-pending affinity maturation platform and oversees all antibody engineering campaigns at Abwiz Bio. Kevin joined Abwiz in 2015 and has been involved in all aspects of platform development including the design and validation of two custom automated robotics systems. Prior to Abwiz, Kevin earned his PhD at The University of Texas at Austin studying antibody engineering by phage display.
Current challenges in design of bispecific/ chimeric antigen receptors for solid tumors
- What are the challenges in bispecifc/chimeric antigen receptor discovery and possible solutions?
- What are ideal targets in solid tumors for bispecific/chimeric antigen receptors and how to find them?
- What new functions can be integrated in bispecific/chimeric antigen receptor cell therapies, such as bispecific ADC?
- What are the challenges for using mRNA/LNP to deliver bispecific/chimeric antigen receptor in vivo?
- What are the future directions in the next ten years of bispecifc/multifunctional biologics and cell therapies?
Chief Executive Officer, Akeagen Inc
Libin Cui is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Akeagen, Inc. a biotech company that discovers and develops highly differentiated single domain antibody-based therapeutics to improve the lives of patients with series diseases. Libin is the primary inventor of CaMouseTM single domain antibody discovery platform. He completed his Postdoc training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. Before he founded Akeagen in 2015, Libin was Assistant Professor University of Nebraska Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. Libin has published several peer-reviewed papers in top journals.
Bi/Multi-Specifics
Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics
More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.
VP of Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Bi/tri-specific strategies for overcoming cell engager toxicity?
- Are current strategies sufficient for overcoming cytokine release syndrome?
- What are the most promising approaches to impart tumor microenvironment selectivity and avoid on-target off-tumor toxicity?
- Can different cell types (e.g. ɣδ T-cells, NK cells, etc.) be engaged for improved efficacy and tolerability?
- Engagement of co-stimulatory receptors may increase potency of T-cell engagers but can toxicity be managed?
Co-Founder & Senior Director of Protein Engineering, Soteria Biotherapeutics
Alex Martinko is a protein engineer, chemical biologist, and biotech entrepreneur working to translate new technologies into next generation therapies. Currently he is co-founder and Sr. Director of Protein Engineering at Soteria Biotherapeutics where he is leading up the development of their T-LITE™ T-cell engager platform. Prior to Soteria, Alex completed his PhD in the lab of Jim Wells at UCSF, where he gained expertise in antibody engineering, chemical biology, proteomics, and cancer cell signalling
Early immunogenicity risk assessment tools for traditional and multi-specific therapeutics
- In silico and in vitro immunogenicity assessment, test early to avoid surprises later on
- The power of combined tools
- Challenges with Immunogenicity testing of multi-specifics
CTO and founder, ImmunXperts
Sofie Pattyn (CTO and founder, ImmunXperts) has over 25 years of experience in the field of immunogenicity assessment (vaccines and biotherapeutics) and in vitro assay development with a focus on functional assays for immunogenicity, immune oncology and Cell and Gene Therapy products. She has extensive hands-on lab experience and has managed and coached several In Vitro teams over the last decade. From 2008 till 2013 she was Head of the In Vitro Immunogenicity group at AlgoNomics (Ghent, Belgium) and Lonza Applied Protein Services (Cambridge, UK). Prior to that, she worked at Innogenetics, Belgium for over 15 years.
Spotlight Presentation-
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
- Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
- Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
- Next generational methods of driving diversity
Vice President, Client Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
Application of computer aided design (CAAD) for therapeutic antibody development
- Traditional antibody discovery may yield less optimal candidates, but with our computer-aided AI strategies, antibody optimization can produce superior candidates.
- Antibody discovery can be a lengthy process, but application of our computer-aided AI strategies can allow for a systematic method of narrowing down candidates and hastening the timeline.
- With a focus on safety, efficacy and manufacturability, antibodies have the capacity to meet clinical success and more importantly, to help patients in need
Chief Executive Officer, Ab Studio
Yue Liu is the founder and CEO of Ab Studio Inc., a biotech applying computer-aided antibody design (CAAD) to develop multi-specific antibodies, internalizing antibodies and catalytic antibodies. Since founded (2017), Ab Studio has licensed out six pre-clinical stage bi- and tri-specific antibody assets. Two of these assets have entered clinical trial I/II stage, serving as proof-of-concepts for Ab Studio’s unique CAAD platforms. Yue holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and infectious diseases from Universite de Sherbrooke, Canada, a M.Sc. in internal medicine from Soochow University, China and a B.Sc. in biology from Nanjing University, China.
4:10 – 4:40pm
- Advantages of in vivo VHH discovery based on immunized alpaca vs other methods
- Case study of a rapid discovery campaign that features a single B cell screening workflow with the Berkeley Light’s Beacon Platform and alpaca B cells
- Illustration of an in silico humanization workflow of alpaca antibody for the development of therapeutic lead candidates
Business Development Team Lead, Abveris
Ryan is a graduate of the Harvard Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Business Development Team Lead for in vivo antibody discovery services at Abveris (part of Twist Bioscience). Ryan works with diverse pharmaceutical partners to develop scientifically and commercially reasonable antibody discovery strategies underlying the next generation of biologics and in vitro diagnostics.
- How can we overcome the challenge to successfully predict the developability of a bispecific
based on the knowledge of the attributes of the individual antibodies that form the two arms of
the bispecific? - What are the key process and manufacturing challenges one must be aware of while making
the early assessment of a platform? - What are the specific challenges in assessing immunogenicity of bispecifics?
- What are the pros and cons of choosing a platform for hetero pairing that can modulate the
overall developability of a given bispecific?
Senior Director Protein Engineering, Loxo Oncology at Eli Lily
Mohan Srinivasan is a Senior Director in Loxo Oncology, a Lilly subsidiary, leading the Protein
Engineering Group, since 2020. In this role he is responsible for overseeing Loxo’s Platform efforts
for Antibody Drug Conjugates and Bispecific Antibodies. He has over 2 decades of experience in
discovery and development of antibody therapeutics, bulk of which was gained in Bristol-Myers
Squibb, as Director, Protein Chemistry. There he was part of the team that advanced several
antibodies into clinic and market, including nivolumab. He also serves as an advisor in Stanford’s
SPARK program. He has a Ph.D. in Biophysics from University of Madras
Emerging Technologies
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
- Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
- Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
- Next generational methods of driving diversity
Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics
More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.
VP of Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Next-generation platforms – Utilizing combinations of invitro, in vivo and in silico methods
- What in vitro, in vivo and in silico methods are we currently using?
- What are the unmet needs of the current antibody discovery platforms and how do we address them?
- How can we utilize emerging technologies for better design, format, half-life, and developability?
- What are the best uses of in silico methods currently, and where is the most growth potential?
Principal Scientist, Triplebar Bio
Adrian is currently leading Triplebar’s effort to develop functional-screening-centric platform for antibody discovery. Previously, as group leader in antibody engineering at Alamar Biosciences, Adrian contributed to the creation of the company’s core technologies of NULISA – zeptomole sensitivity detection of proteins in plasma and ATTOBODY – an antibody discovery platform for routine discovery of picomolar binders, without affinity maturation. Prior to his current role, he invented Snap-ChIP – technology for in situ measurement of antibody specificity and capture efficiency in chromatin immunoprecipitation, which was licensed out to Epicypher. He has also pioneered work on in silico antibody specificity correction, enabling abundance information recovery of specific targets in the assays using low specificity antibodies. Prior to this, Adrian participated in the efforts of the Recombinant Antibody Network in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Kossiakoff, where he contributed to HTP antibody discovery using a semi-automated phage display platform.
Discussion and deep dive into single B cell discovery workflows: trends and key considerations for next-gen therapeutic targets
- Success and challenges of different single B cell platforms against challenging next-gen targets including multi-pass membrane proteins
- Single B cell workflows vs other discovery methods including conventional hybridoma method and in vitro display technologies
- General discussion on combined workflow vs single workflow
- Adopting single B cell workflows for VHH discovery and emerging therapeutic modalities such as CARs and bispecifics/multispecifics
Director-Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach
- Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
- Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
- Next generational methods of driving diversity
Vice President, Client Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
Advances in delivery of biologics – antibodies, combinations, multispecifics and other complex molecules
- What are the challenges faced in the delivery of biologics?
- How do we target specific tissues and cells as well as intracellular targets and pathways?
- Where does the mRNA and DNA encoded biologics delivery stand?
Vice President, Nutcracker Therapeutics
Guna Kannan is currently leading the Protein Therapeutics team at Nutcracker Therapeutics. He has more than 20 years of protein engineering, antibody engineering/discovery, developability, and preclinical assessment experiences and has helped develop several novel biotherapeutic platforms and molecules. Prior to joining Nutcracker, Guna was Vice President, Head of Biotherapeutics, at Denali Therapeutics where he helped coordinate activities ranging from target validation to IND-enabling studies with a team of ~40 scientists. He was also Principal Scientist and Protein Engineering and Optimization group head at Amgen Inc where he spent nearly 10 years. Guna has co-authored 60+ peer-reviewed research articles and is a listed patent co-inventor of both clinical molecules and novel platform technologies. He earned his master’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Science, and completed Post-Doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA.