Rational engineering of novel antibody formats

One of the major challenges facing the biopharmaceutical industry is to produce therapeutic antibodies and their derivatives in a cost effective way. The current way of producing these proteins is by expression in mammalian cell-lines. However, problems can arise when the expressed proteins have been engineered to confer new functional properties. In particular, the protein may not fold and assemble correctly, leading to low yield and a requirement to carry out expensive and time consuming purification.  This project will address how antibodies with novel formats fold in mammalian cells with a view to the rational design of novel therapeutics.