This research outlines the development of a general technique to create millions of closely related variants of a monoclonal antibody (mab). Antibodies of improved affinity could then be found by filter hybridization screening. High affinity mabs are usually desirable for diagnostic, research and therapeutic applications. The system can also be used cross-species for the conversion of murine mabs to human mabs. Murine mabs are being used in many clinical applications such as cancer, septic shock and transplantation. The use of human mabs would obviate the human anti-mouse mAb response which often blunts the clinical usefulness of mab Immunotherapy. However, for most indications human mabs are very difficult or impossible to obtain. Human mabs made by this method would not have the same antigenic restrictions and thus could be of great practical utility.Awardee's statement of the potential commercial applications of the research:The commercial applications of an improved method for generating high affinity and/or human monoclonal antibodies are very broad. The techniques developed could potentially impact all areas of biological research and clinical medicine which utilize monoclonal antibodies.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
