Monoclonal Antibodies and how to Make Them
Nanomedicine Research Group, ICTMumbai
Nanomedicine Research Group at ICT is doing disruptive research in the area of applied biotechnology
40 students have poured into a classroom in one of ICT’s buildings. Most of them are abuzz with excitement, some are weary from many hours spent inside the lab, and some are curious about the thing that has brought them all together- the weekly lab meeting of the Nanomedicine Research Group. This is one of the only times one can find all the researchers of the NRG in a single place, as they are usually spread across various labs and research facilities across the ICT’s campus. Today they have all gathered to hear about the research of M.Tech. student Mrinal Naik, who is working on her Master’s thesis. Mrinal is developing and optimising feeding strategies for monoclonal antibody producing CHO-S cells. She will present her work to her research guide Dr. Ratnesh Jain, Dr. Prajakta Dandekar Jain and other researchers of the NRG.?
The human body is one of the most complicated, yet fascinating machineries to exist. Through years of evolution, it has developed ways to grow and thrive in many conditions. One of the ways it is able to do so is through the presence of an immune system- a dedicated team of organs, cells and molecules committed to protecting the human body against potentially harmful agents called pathogens. Pathogens include bacteria, viruses, fungi and other parasites.
Pathogens have many ways of breaching the body’s defences and making their way into our organ systems. However, the immune system recognises the breach and immediately deploys its defences. This is possible because some pathogens are not as inconspicuous as they seem. They have on their surface some recognisable markers called antigens. And it is these antigens that ultimately elicit an immune response in our body. One of the many ways in which the immune system responds is by having some of the cells generate specialised proteins called antibodies, that assist other immune cells in the destruction of the pathogens. Antibodies are proteins released by immune cells called B-cells during an immune response and they target and attack a pathogen by recognising and binding to the antigens on it.
Monoclonal antibodies are antibodies that are targeted towards a specific antigen. They can be produced based on the nature of their requirement. They can be produced for any disease, malignancy, transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and other infectious diseases. Since they are specific for the disease they are treating, they are a highly effective form of treatment and are a part of personalised medicine.?
In nature, monoclonal antibodies are made by the immune systems of certain organisms (like humans, for instance) in response to the pathogens that the immune system is exposed to. However, scientists have learned how monoclonal antibodies are made and have successfully re-created the procedure in their labs by harvesting and culturing antibody-producing cells.?
Mrinal, our M.Tech. student studies the antibodies produced by cells known as CHO-S cells. These are epithelial cells that are derived from the ovaries of the Chinese hamster. They can be cultured in laboratory settings. They are able to survive outside the organism they have been harvested from by growing in a growth media that contains all the essential nutrients and growth factors required for them to thrive and proliferate. Mrinal wants to determine what are the compounds that when added to the growth media, result in the improvement of the quality of the antibodies produced.?
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Over the course of her research, she modified the growth medium by adding several compounds such as biotin, folic acid, glycine, serine and tryptophan, in varying amounts. She then monitored the effects on antibody production using critical quality attributes (CQAs) such as size variants, charge variants and the extent of glycosylation.
Mrinal shared her updates with the NRG and her presentation was met with a positive reaction. She received feedback from the principal investigators, research scientists and other students. She will now study more critical quality attributes and work on the reproducibility of her results. Her research could potentially help with the development of strategies for large-scale production of monoclonal antibodies, which will in turn help in the development of accessible treatments for many diseases.?
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Associate Professor, HOD of Pharmacognosy, Bharat Technology
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