Creating a new platform to generate antibodies in the lab

About the project:

This project will create a new platform to generate human antibodies for therapeutic applications. Human antibodies are medicines used to control how the body’s immune system responds to threats, to modulate the behaviour of certain cell types and to target invading pathogens. It is sometimes difficult however, to generate high affinity antibodies against human proteins because our immune system has mechanisms in place to prevent auto-antibody production which are designed to guard against autoimmunity.

Here, we will use genetically modified stem cells to free the developing immune system from constraints that restrict auto-antibody production and combine this with new methods for capturing antibody producing cells.

Lead researcher: Professor Ed Stanley

Tissue of interest: Immune cells

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