AbCellera Announces Successful Completion of Collaboration for the Discovery of Fully Human Antibodies Against Pathogenic E. Coli and Ebola Virus

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 20, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AbCellera announced today successful completion of its first antibody discovery partnership with MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The project, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) under the ADEPT-PROTECT program, was directed towards rapid human antibody discovery for infectious diseases.

Through this collaboration AbCellera demonstrated single cell antibody discovery with throughput of millions of cells per experiment, allowing for the efficient and deep screening of natural antibody responses from patients following infection or challenge. Using AbCellera's platform, the selection and sequencing of fully human antibodies was achieved in as little as five days. Screening of over 10 million single B cells was used to discover a panel of hundreds of ultra-rare antibodies against multiple targets from enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli. In a separate element of the collaboration, AbCellera also identified hundreds of human anti-Ebola antibodies from a single blood sample obtained from a convalescent human patient, and provided sequences of a select subset of antibodies in less than a week.  

Dr. Carl Hansen, CEO and co-founder of AbCellera commented: "We are very pleased with the success of this project, which has clearly established our platform as a powerful approach for human antibody discovery. In particular, our data has demonstrated single cell antibody screening with combined speed, throughput and assay flexibility that is unmatched. In addition to infectious diseases, these capabilities are enabling for applications in immuno-oncology, and will open new opportunities for rapid functional profiling of human immune responses."

This work was made possible by close collaboration between team members from AbCellera and MassBiologics within the frame of the ADEPT-PROTECT program. "We would like to thank Dr. Mark Klempner for his leadership in this project, as well as Drs. Colby Souders, William Thomas, Yang Wang, Keith Reimann, Lisa Cavacini, and the larger MassBiologics scientific team. Their efforts have made this both a very enjoyable and a productive partnership. We are grateful for DARPA's support and it has been an honor to be of service in this important and forward-looking initiative led by Colonel Dan Wattendorf to bolster rapid pandemic response and biodefense." said Dr. Hansen.