Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Immunoprecise Antibodies (IPA) is a Victoria, BC based company with expertise in development andx000D
production of murine and rabbit monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). To expand its competitive foot print in thex000D
antibody and recombinant protein production sector, IPA is exploring new strategies that will provide a morex000D
rapid turn around in the production of high quality therapeutic or research antibodies. In the production ofx000D
polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies, one of the most time consuming steps is the immunization and boostingx000D
of host animals; which typically requires 50-60 days. To minimize this lag time IPA is interested in developingx000D
a new antibody production platform that circumvents the immunization step and will produced full length IgGx000D
antibodies that have the correct glycosylation patterns. Implementing this strategy will involve the developmentx000D
of an novel bicistronic vectors that will be used to create a surface display IgG library in the protozoanx000D
organism Leishmania. Clones expressing the an IgG antibody that recognizes an antigen of interest can easilyx000D
be isolated using a biopanning approach. A major advantage for using Leishmania is that this organism hasx000D
glycosylation patterns that closely resemble thos observed on human and rabbit IgG antibodies. This projectx000D
will provide that proof of principle data require for the ultimate creation of a human IgG surface display library.