Objective
The standard method for generating specific antibodies is immunisation of animals with the relevant antigen, followed by selection and immortalisation of single lymphocyte clones by fusion to a myeloma cell line. Over the last two decades this method has been extremely valuable for the development of a wide range of biomedical products. However, its dependence on in vivo immunisation represents some major limitations for molecular targets with poor immunogenicity, such as haptens or self-antigens. Moreover, as the resulting antibodies are of murine origin, they are in most cases unsuitable for therapeutic purposes.
The selection of recombinant antibodies in vitro from phage display libraries is a novel alternative, which circumvents most of these problems and provides access to a multitude of antibodies with novel specificites. This technology has been developed in parallel by a number of European and American laboratories, including the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.
The main objective of this project was to combine the antibody library technology with state of the art methods for biomagnetic separation. The Norwegian company Dynal AS has proprietary technology for the production of monodisperse paramagnetic beads, and has exploited this extensively for solid phase separation in biomedicine. Biomagnetic separation is expected to provide significant improvements during several steps of the antibody selection process. This included preparation of cell surface antigens and immobilisation of antigen during biopanning. The project planned to optimise the bead technology for these purposes leading to a versitile tool for antibody selection. Two national centres for cancer research (NRH, Oslo and DKFZZ, Heidelberg) contributed to the search for antibodies against tumour markers, which will then be evaluated for their diagnostic potential.
Another major outcome of the project was to optimise the surface of the paramagnetic beads with respect to immobilisation of recombinant antibodies obtained from the libraries. Depending on the particular antibody specificity, this will create a general system for immunopurification of cells, proteins or small molecular compounds from complex biological samples.
Finally, this project sought to provide valuable support for a newly established firm in Oslo (Affitech AS), which concentrates on immune based products developed directly by the antibody library technology. Transferred know-how for library generation and selection was initially used to develop antibodies against certain small molecular compounds with relevance for public health surveillance. More recently Affitech has used the technology to establish a pipeline of projects aiming for new antibody-based medicines, alone, and in collaboration with commercial and academic partners.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology immunisation
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology virology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Data not available
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
0371 OSLO
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.