The Antibody Society

the official website of the antibody society

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

AIRR VII Meeting Registration is Live!

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The AIRR-C Meetings Sub-Committee is pleased to announce that registration is live for the AIRR-C VII Meeting!

AIRR-C Meetings VII – Learnings and Perspectives will be held in-person at the prestigious Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, in Porto, Portugal. While we are excited to gather in large numbers this June, we understand that not everyone can travel and attend in-person. As such, the Meeting will also be offered as a hybrid event so both in-person and virtual participants can engage and enjoy multiple live-streaming sessions and recorded content, an in-conference app, opportunities to engage with colleagues and industry sponsors, and to network, through the Whova meeting platform.

REGISTER NOW

Optional Group Dinner Ticket

We have secured a fabulous venue for the final night dinner on Thursday, June 6th! Porto is famous for, you guessed it, Port! As part of the group dinner, we have arranged for a brief cellar tour that will include some fascinating history of the region. 

Be sure to register for the group dinner and cellar tour event on the Whova meeting platform. It will take place at the Cálem Port Wine Cellars. Your ticket includes the cellar tour, a welcome cocktail reception, a selection of drinks, and a three course meal (you choose options from a set menu).

Early Bird Discounts & Ticket Types

The early bird discount is available through April 14th on all ticket types including in-person tickets, non-academic/industry tickets, virtual attendee tickets and one-day-only tickets.

AIRR-C VII has a jam packed agenda!

View the current program at a glance, which includes the following keynote speakers:

  • Jeff Gray (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
  • Nicholas Provine (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Bill Schief (Scripps Research, USA)
  • Hedda Wardemann (German Cancer Research Center, DE)

Student/Postdoc Mentoring Session and Match-ups

Are you willing to be a mentor and share your insights and exciting research with the future generation of AIRR-researchers? Are you interested in being mentored? Be sure to sign up when you complete the registration form.

We will host specific sessions for students and postdocs – be sure to check the agenda for the “early career track” and we hope you enjoy the speed networking and career development panel.

Deep Dive Software/Tools Tutorials

There will be 10 different software/tool tutorials at the Meeting and each person can attend two! Be sure to sign up through the Whova meeting platform for the “in-person-only” Deep Dive Software/Tools Tutorials on Tuesday, June 4th, early as space is limited.

Poster Sessions & Short Talks

Our fun and informative poster sessions are back and we have had an overwhelming response with over 80 posters submitted and 10 short talks accepted! Given the frequent demands of people to add additional posters, we have reopened the abstract submission form until April 26th. For those seeking this great opportunity, fill out this form.

Travel Award Application for Early Career Researchers and Students/Postdocs

The AIRR-C VII Meetings Sub-Committee obtained a grant from the EFIS – European Journal of Immunology to help support early career researchers and student/postdoc trainees to attend the meeting in person. If you are interested in learning more and applying, please use this link for access to the secure application form. Competition closes on April 15th, 2024.

Industry Networking Reception and Sponsorship Opportunities

We will be hosting an industry networking reception. If you know of a company interested in participating in this event or in Meeting or Community sponsorship opportunities, please contact us at meetings@airr-community.org for further details.

Meeting Venue Information & Porto Transit Information

The meeting will be held at the FEUP – School of Engineering, University of Porto, Portugal. There are several options for getting there besides walking (by metro, bus, car, or train). Detailed information is available in the Whova meeting platform in the Logistics Center.

A huge thank you to our AIRR-C Meeting VII Sponsors!

Gold

  • Cellecta
  • MiLaboratories
  • PipeBio

Silver

  • ENPICOM
  • The Antibody Society
  • Voredos

Bronze

  • FairJourney Biologics
  • ImmuneWatch
  • Infinity Bio, Inc.
  • MAbSilico
  • NaturalAntibody
  • UCB

Travel Award

  • EFIS – European Journal of Immunology

Follow us at #airrc7!

We look forward to meeting with you in June! Don’t hesitate to reach out to meetings@airr-community.org should you have any questions or concerns.

Tune in for the March Seminar Series exploring antibody heavy chains!

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AIRR-Community-Seminar-Series-March-2024-1

Registration for the March 28th (8:00 am – 9:30am PDT/11:00 am – 12:30 am EDT/4:00 pm – 5:30 pm CET) AIRR-C Seminar Series session is open. Following the usual format of the series, an established and an early career scientist will discuss their AIRR-seq related research. Melissa Smith (University of Louisville) will present “The Hidden Diversity of Antibody Heavy Chains: Implications for Autoantibody Mediated Disease”. Next, Oscar Rodriguez (University of Louisville) will present “Genome poises antibody repertoire from early B cell development”. Register now!

Please note that there is a DST (daylight savings time) anomaly between North America and Europe, we will start at the regular 16:00 CET time.

Visit the AIRR Community Seminar Series website to learn more about this monthly series and access the recordings of past sessions.

TEVIMBRA (tislelizumab-jsgr) granted first FDA approval for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

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On March 13, 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved TEVIMBRA (tislelizumab-jsgr) as monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) after prior systemic chemotherapy that did not include a PD-(L)1 inhibitor. TEVIMBRA, a humanized IgG4 antibody engineered with modifications that stabilize the hinge region and abrogate binding to Fc receptors, was approved as an orphan drug for this indication.

FDA’s approval is based on the Phase 3 RATIONALE 302 trial (NCT03430843), which met its primary endpoint in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population, with a median overall survival (OS) in the TEVIMBRA arm or 8.6 months (95% CI: 7.5, 10.4) compared to 6.3 months (95% CI: 5.3, 7.0) in the chemotherapy arm (p=0.0001; hazard ratio [HR]=0.70 [95% CI: 0.57, 0.85]). The results showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful survival benefit for TEVIMBRA compared with chemotherapy and the safety profile of TEVIMBRA was favorable over chemotherapy.

In 2019, China’s National Medical Products Administration granted the first global approval of tislelizumab. In 2023, the product received approval by the European Commission for advanced or metastatic ESCC after prior chemotherapy, and it received a positive opinion by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency in February 2024 as a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer across three indications.

Biologics license applications for tislelizumab as first-line treatment for patients with unresectable, recurrent, locally advanced, or metastatic ESCC and patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma are currently undergoing FDA review. The target action dates for these applications are in July and December 2024, respectively.

Details for all approved antibody therapeutics and those in regulatory review can be found in our searchable table.

Learn how to harness the power of ADCs in our next webinar!

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Join us for our next webinar!

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) have emerged as an important class of targeted therapeutics, combining the targeting specificity of antibodies with the potency of cytotoxic drugs. Recent advances in ADC research have led to improved stability, efficacy, and safety. There is a clear trend within Antibody therapeutics towards ADCs with the improvement of novel technologies to address a growing cancer population worldwide.

However, developing effective ADCs is expensive and poses unique informatics challenges. Researchers must integrate data across multiple modalities – from antibody discovery and engineering to small molecule payload development and optimization. Seamless collaboration between immunologists, protein engineers, chemists, and pharmacologists are essential.

The Signals™ Research Suite is the first integrated informatics platform purpose-built to accelerate multi-modal drug development like ADCs and is composed of a trio of scientific software applications:

  • Signals™ Notebook: The premier cloud-based electronic lab notebook that facilitates creation and communication about molecules of interest via hierarchical editing language for macromolecules (HELM), powered Chemdraw®.
  • Signals™ VitroVivo: For data analysis, visualization, and curve fitting bioassay results for standardized and consistent results, powered by Spotfire®.
  • Signals™ Inventa: Enabling multi-assay or multi-study comparison, powered by Spotfire, with the ability to find the best candidate to move forward, accelerating decision making. Researchers gain better visibility into ADC candidate profiling and can quickly determine structure-activity and structure-property relationships across modalities to select optimal conjugation sites and pairings.

Attendees will gain insights into the latest trends and challenges in ADC development, informed by recent research and advancements in the field. The presentation will also emphasize the importance of integrating various data types and sources in the ADC development process, showcasing how the Signals Research Suite facilitates this integration, thereby driving more efficient, safer drug development.

About the speaker:

Dr. Wisotsky attended the University of California, Santa Cruz with a focus on molecular and cellular biology. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of California, Riverside for Neuroscience where he worked on taste detection from molecular mechanism to behavioral outcomes in fruit flies. Subsequently Zev joined startup companies with the focus to support scientists getting their science done more efficiently. He has worked within pre-sales teams to discover, consult, and deliver software solutions that meet customer needs both scientifically and technically. Today he is a Revvity Senior Principle Marketing Manager for Biologics in the Signals Suite.

Registration is open!

 

Don’t miss the February AIRR-C Seminar Series, covering antibody evolution and language model-based embeddings

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February 2024 Seminar Banner

Registration for the February 22nd (4:00 PM – 5:30 PM CET) AIRR-C Seminar Series session is open. Following the usual format of the series, an established and an early career scientist will discuss their AIRR-seq related research. Brian Hie, of Stanford University, will present “Learning to read and write antibody evolution”. Next, Mamie Wang, of Yale University, will present “Language model-based B cell receptor sequence embeddings can effectively encode receptor specificity”. Register now!

Visit the AIRR Community Seminar Series website to learn more about this monthly series and access the recordings of past sessions.