Ivelin Georgiev, Associate Professor of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology, and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, will give a talk on "Antibody discovery using LIBRA-seq."

ABSTRACT

B cells are a major component of the immune response in a wide range of disease settings, including infection, allergy, autoimmunity, and others. Further, antibodies (a product of B cells) are effectively used in diagnostics, therapy, and prevention. Yet, despite decades of antibody discovery efforts, there is still very limited data linking human antibody sequence to antigen specificity. One of the major reasons for such limited data is the fact that even high-throughput antibody sequence identification methods such as next-generation sequencing are generally decoupled from the process of antibody functional characterization. To address this challenge, we recently developed LIBRA-seq (LInking B-cell Receptor to Antigen specificity through sequencing), a technology that, for a given sample, enables the mapping of antibody sequence to antigen specificity from a single high-throughput experiment for a large number of antigens at a time. Using LIBRA-seq, we have successfully identified antibodies with unique phenotypic properties against a number of pathogens of biomedical significance, including HIV-1, hepatitis C, and coronavirus. Overall, the LIBRA-seq technology offers unmatched capabilities for high-throughput discovery of novel antibody therapeutics and for assessment of vaccine efficacy.