The Antibody Society

the official website of the antibody society

An international non-profit supporting antibody-related research and development.

Join us on May 26 for our next webinar!

by

Understanding memory B cell responses induced by heterologous SARS-CoV-2 exposure

Thursday May 26, 2022 11am ET / 5pm CET

Speaker: Laura M. Walker, PhD

Senior Director of Antibody Sciences at Adimab and Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Adagio Therapeutics.

Understanding immune responses following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) breakthrough infection will facilitate the development of next-generation vaccines. Towards this end, Dr. Walker and her colleagues profiled spike (S)-specific B cell responses following Omicron/BA.1 infection in mRNA-vaccinated donors. The acute antibody response was characterized by high levels of somatic hypermutation and a bias toward recognition of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strains, suggesting the early activation of vaccine-induced memory B cells. BA.1 breakthrough infection induced a shift in B cell immunodominance hierarchy from the S2 subunit toward the receptor binding domain (RBD). A large proportion of RBD-directed neutralizing antibodies isolated from BA.1 breakthrough infection donors displayed convergent sequence features and broadly recognized SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. Dr. Walker will discuss these findings, which provide insights into the role of pre-existing immunity in shaping the B cell response to heterologous SARS-CoV-2 variant exposure.

Registration is open!

AIRR Community Merchandise Shop Now Open!

by

The AIRR Communications Sub-committee is pleased to announce the launch of an online merchandise shop featuring AIRR Community logo’d merchandise. Shirts, hoodies, tote bags and stickers are currently available, with additional designs to be added in the future. Be sure to check out the special Immuno-Collection while you are browsing!

All products are constructed from certified organic fabrics and printed in the UK in a renewable energy powered factory. Delivery is £6 for EU and £7 for international orders. Expected shipping times are 2 weeks for EU, approximately 3-4 weeks for international. 

Order yours today to support the Community and show your AIRR-C pride with style! 

Join us on April 28th for our webinar on Fc silencing techniques!

by

Registration is open!

Thursday April 28, 2022, 11am ET

Speaker: Ian Wilkinson, PhD

Antibodies are nature’s pro-drugs, wonderfully evolved to target pathogens and activate immune systems. For certain indications where ADCC or CDC are required this is ideal, but for many other applications activation of inflammatory responses is unnecessary and potentially highly undesirable. In these situations silenced antibodies with either naturally low effector function or engineered Fc domains are the preferred option. However, many of the commonly used options in the clinic, such as IgG4, LALA or aglycosylation, are widely reported to still have residual Fc receptor binding and cytokine activation in patients.

This presentation will describe the first thorough comparison of most of the generic and proprietary Fc silencing mutations, demonstrating that all previously reported variants show residual binding to Fc receptors. It will also describe the discovery of a novel set of mutations, known as STR, that show no detectable binding to Fcγ receptors and do not elicit inflammatory cytokine responses. Meanwhile, immunogenicity, stability and PK are unaffected. This totally silenced variant has the potential to improve the safety and efficacy of therapeutic antibodies and Fc fusion proteins.

Advice for Entrepreneurs

by

Do you have a great idea for a new biopharmaceutical company, but need advice on how to start one?

Excedr has numerous informative articles geared towards budding startup founders. Topics include company formation, legal basics, finance basics, common founder mistakes, lab operations, and IP rights and strategy. Expand your knowledge base here:

Starting an R&D Company? Tips for Founding a New Biotech


Laying the Legal Groundwork

Should You Incorporate Your Biotech Startup in Delaware?

Business Entities: LLC vs. S-Corp vs. C-Corp

Why Do VCs Prefer C-Corporations?

How to Write a Business Plan for Your Life Sciences Startup

Writing a Lean Plan for Your Life Sciences Startup

A Guide to Starting a Diagnostics Outfit or CRO

We hope this advice is helpful – Good luck!

AIRR Community 2022 Executive Sub-committee Election

by

With each major meeting interval of the AIRR Community, elections are held for leadership positions on the AIRR-C Executive Sub-committee.  This spring, per our governance, we are seeking nominations for Executive SC Chair-Elect and up to three members of the Executive SC.

To nominate an individual to serve on the AIRR-C Executive SC, the nominator as well as the nominee need to be members of the AIRR Community and the nominee must be willing to serve on the AIRR-C Executive SC.  You are welcome (but not required) to nominate as many people as you would like. You can nominate the same person to become Chair-Elect or to become a Member of the Executive SC, and if you want, you can nominate yourself!  Here is our election timeline:

Nominations open: Monday, April 4th, 2022
Nominations close:  Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 Midnight PDT
Nominees contacted by AIRR-C Executive SC Chair to determine interest: Thursday, April 21st, 2022 Midnight PDT
Deadline for nominees to provide short bios and statements of interest: Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022 Midnight PDT
Voting opens: Monday, May 16th, 2022 Noon PDT
Polls close: Wednesday, May 18th, 2022 Midnight PDT
Results announced: Thursday, May 19th, 2022 during the closing session of AIRR-C Meeting VI
Successful candidates will commence their role on the Exec SC commencing Friday, May 20th, 2022 until the next AIRR Community Meeting (interval ~18 months).

Please nominate someone today by clicking this link (AIRR Community members only – you will need to log in)