In Silico Antibody Affinity Maturation
Antibodies make up a class of proteins indispensable in mediating immune responses. Thanks to their binding versatility immunoglobulins can recognize virtually any antigen. In a process termed 'affinity maturation', antibody interaction interfaces undergo an accelerated mutation process which accounts for the diverse binding capacities of those molecules. It goes without saying that the ability to design high-affinity specific binders is of huge interest to the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, there are not many commercial nor academic software packages (like OptCDR; Pantazes et al. 2010) which would design immunoglobulins for a specific antigen, even though proof of concept of computational antibody design was provided by Lippow in 2007. Main focus of my research is the study of the antibody affinity maturation process with the ultimate aim to produce tools which would streamline the current industrial antibody design process.