BME Virtual Weekly Seminar Series: Eric Sundberg
Description
Eric Sundberg, professor and chair of Biochemistry at the Emory University School of Medicine, will give a talk titled "Engineering Antibody-Mediated Immune Responses" for the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
The faculty host is Jamie Spangler.
Abstract:
Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies are major components of the humoral and adaptive immune systems and, as such, are critical to protecting the host from pathogens both upon their initial encounter, primarily via antibody-mediated effector functions, as well as their reencounter, after somatic hypermutation and production from memory B cells. Antibodies also constitute an important and growing class of drugs for the treatment of a wide range of diseases, including autoimmunity, infection and cancer. The abilities of antibodies to recruit and stimulate immune system cells in order to exert their effector functions are harbored in their constant regions, or Fc domains, which engage Fc γ receptors (FcγRs) and complement. This property is critically important for their clinical efficacy, especially in the immunotherapeutic treatment of cancer. Methods to engineer IgG Fc domains to manipulate their in vivo killing capacities lag substantially behind those for customizing Fabs due to the presence of a conserved N-linked glycan in the Fc domain at residue Asn297 that is overwhelmingly the most important molecular determinant of FcγR binding. Advances in IgG antibody engineering, including enzyme-directed glyco-engineering, will be presented in this seminar.
Who can attend?
- Faculty
- Staff
- Students
