Taiga Biotechnologies has developed a novel method of generating fully human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) based on its proprietary platform for conditionally immortalized human HSCs. Taiga believes its approach can overcome existing obstacles to efficient antibody discovery and development and recognize antigenic specificities that would normally be difficult to generate with current technologies. Taiga’s approach can also generate antibodies 3-4 times faster than current antibody production methods, potentially making it suitable for the rapid generation of antibodies for emerging infectious diseases.
In recent years, monoclonal antibody (MAb) therapeutics have emerged as highly successful treatments for cancer and other illnesses. MAbs work by binding to the cancer cell or pathogen and targeting it for destruction, or by blocking the binding of viral surface proteins to cellular receptors. Despite the success of antibody therapies in the clinic, the overall approach and ability to apply MAb therapies to many diseases is limited by the difficulty in generating antibodies to certain protein targets. The difficulty arises because those proteins do not elicit an efficient reaction by the immune system due to a phenomenon called immune dominance.
Traditional methods for generating MAbs limit the possible target specificity at several stages:
Taiga’s scientific team discovered that they could force mice to generate antibodies to a “self” target (“auto-antibodies”) by over-expressing a particular growth gene in antibody-producing B cells that are derived from the proprietary stem cell lines. In doing so, responsive B-cells overcome regulatory mechanisms that normally prevent antibody formation against the host’s “self” proteins, become activated, and produce copious amounts of auto-antibodies.
Such mice also developed B-cell tumors that Taiga can grow in the laboratory for many months, suggesting that the company has overcome the challenge of developing an antibody cell line by having to “fuse” an antibody-producing with another cell.
Recently, Taiga has refined its method of generating antibodies to generate specific human antibodies in 6-8 weeks. In theory, the company believes it could generate antibodies against new targets in a very short amount of time, bypassing the extensive testing required to identify the one cell that makes the antibody of interest and the elaborate process involved in engineering a mouse antibody into a human antibody.
Using this technology, Taiga believes it can develop antibodies against any conceivable target for clinical applications in a variety of disease indications. The company’s ability to quickly generate specific antibodies without the need and problems related to humanizing antibodies makes Taiga’s approach unique in the field of MAb production.
