Cancer immunotherapy has brought a paradigm shift in cancer treatment. It uses the immune system’s strength to treat cancers. However, next-generation cancer immunotherapies have yet to reach their full potential. A limitation is the poor throughput of functional screens that can only evaluate a few thousand antibodies.
Droplet microfluidic technology enables exceptional throughput in cell research and screening at the single-cell level. For example, the examination of millions of plasma cells for antibodies linked to vaccinations or cancer targets thanks to the intricacy of the microfluidic droplet technique. Screening for functional antibodies, on the other hand, desperately needs improvement.
Researchers have devised a technology platform. It allows them to screen simultaneously for antibody binding, agonistic activity, and bispecific antibody activities. This approach combines the strength of an autocrine-based lentiviral transduction system with the microfluidic droplet technique. This streamlined method offers a quick and impartial discovery of active antibodies with significantly higher throughput and accuracy.
To demonstrate the system’s capability, functional antibodies for CD40 agonism were identified with a low frequency (0.02%) using two rounds of screening. In addition, the system’s versatility was demonstrated by combining an anti-Her2 anti-CD3 BiTE antibody library with functional screening, which allowed for the efficient identification of active anti-Her2 anti-CD3 BiTE antibodies. The platform has the potential to revolutionize the development of next-generation cancer immunotherapy drugs as well as advance medical research.
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