PI/Head: Cheng-I
WANG, Ph.D
Email: Wang_Chengi@immunol.a-star.edu.sg
The
Human Monoclonal Antibodies Platform at SIgN was established to discover, engineer, and develop human
therapeutic antibodies for unmet medical needs.
Background
Antibodies
represent a relatively new class of therapeutic that has shown great success in treating devastating diseases in
the field of cancer, inflammation and infection. To date, >30 antibodies have been approved for therapy and
>240 antibodies are currently under clinical development. Antibodies elicit remarkable therapeutic efficacy
due to their unmatched high affinity, high selectivity and low toxicity characteristics. In addition, antibodies
function via unique mechanisms, such as antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) and
complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC), which are unachievable with small molecule drugs. These unique
molecular characteristics make monoclonal antibodies the biggest biomedical and commercial success story in
biotechnology history.
Technologies
and Approach
Using
state-of-the-art antibody technologies we have developed streamlined, high-throughput single B-cell PCR cloning
technology to isolate natural disease-fighting antibodies directly from virus-infected patient blood samples. By
this approach we have generated a large panel of neutralizing antibodies against dengue virus. We also use
combinatorial phage display technology to discover antibodies against human disease antigens, including
cytokines and tumor markers on cancer stem cells. Understanding the importance of the tumor microenvironment in
cancer progression has also directed our focus to the manipulation of the immune cells surrounding cancerous
tumors. Now, we are developing a number of approaches to test the effects of antibody-directed depletion
of tumor-promoting macrophages in cancer models.
The advanced
antibody discovery/engineering technologies in our group form a core infrastructure component of the basic,
translational and clinical research platform at SIgN. We actively pursue industrial collaboration to further
develop our therapeutic antibody candidates. A number of our projects are currently under collaboration with
various biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.
Figure
1: Bispecific monoclonal antibodies. The SIgN
Antibody Platform designs, develops and engineers human antibodies, including bispecific monoclonal antibodies
that can bind two different types of antigen at one time.