Project properties

Title Antibody mimetics
Group Microbiology, Laboratory of
Project type thesis
Credits 12 BSc. thesis
Supervisor(s) Amos Zhao and Servé Kengen
Examiner(s) John van de Oost
Contact info Yixian.Zhao(at)wur.nl
Begin date 2012/03/15
End date 2014/03/01
Description Antibody mimetics are artificially created molecules that can specifically bind antigens, but that are structurally not related to antibodies. Using the right protein scaffold, one can potentially create affinity binders that overcome the limitations of antibodies. The technology used in this research is a combination of protein engineering and antibody technology. A suitable protein scaffold must be amenable to mutations on one side of the molecule without affecting the stability. Then the chosen molecular surface will be diversified by altering the amino acid residues on the surface. Millions of mutational variants will be created and kept as a pool for being displayed on the M13 phage at the later step. The potential binders to a specific target can be selected via a bio-panning process.
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