We are very excited to announce we are a recipient of Dr Philip Welch funding, for the project ‘Preparing for the next pandemic: creating a bovine antibody library for Disease X’.
To be prepared for Disease X, which is predicted to be a virus, we need resources that can be rapidly deployed to discover therapeutic antibodies against the pathogen. In vitro antibody display libraries are used to rapidly identify novel antibodies in a matter of weeks in response to emerging disease threats, and have the advantage that animal immunisations are not required. Universal or ‘naïve’ antibody libraries (i.e. not from immunised sources) contain a repertoire of billions of antibodies that can bind to any target of interest.
With this funding, we will create a universal antibody library from the immune repertoire of cows, which can be rapidly deployed for emerging diseases. Cows have a subset of unusual antibodies that contain ultralong antigen-binding loops, which facilitate antibody binding to deep pockets in viral proteins – these are typically inaccessible to human antibodies. Ultralong bovine antibodies have proven valuable in developing neutralising antibodies against HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and other viruses. We will display the antibodies on the surface of yeast which facilitates the rapid isolation of high-affinity antibodies by using fluorescence-activated cell sorting. To demonstrate proof of principle, we will expose the antibody library to the RBD fragment of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, isolate the antibodies that bind strongest to the antigen, and then evaluate the antibodies for specific target recognition.
We are hugely grateful to Dr Philip Welch for his support of this project, and look forward to sharing our progress and results.