In a roundtable discussion, three experts bring perspectives on different methods for generating antibodies, including from naive libraries, patients, and immunizations. They discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the advantages of refocusing on infectious disease research as well as the importance of having ready immune libraries and immunized mice, plus other approaches, ahead of any future infectious disease outbreak.

BIOs

Andrew R.M. Bradbury, PhD, CSO, Specifica, Inc.
Andrew Bradbury was trained in medicine at the universities of Oxford and London, and subsequently practiced medicine for five years (one full time, and four part time) in the U.K. He received his PhD (Cambridge University) in the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology under the guidance of Dr. Cesar Milstein. After his Ph.D. he spent 10 years in Italy: three years as a post doc in the CNR Institute of neurobiology, Rome, Italy; and seven years in Trieste, where he was first visiting professor, and subsequently tenured as assistant professor at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA, Trieste, Italy). He was a staff scientist and group leader at Los Alamos National Lab from July 1999 to June 2017, when he left to join Specifica, a startup he founded that specializes in antibody selections and selling unique antibody libraries. He has worked in the field of phage display and antibody engineering for 25 years, and has helped organize over forty international congresses and practical courses in this field, both in Europe and the U.S. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles, including a number of reviews and commentaries on phage display and antibody engineering. He is one

James E. Crowe Jr., MD, Ann Scott Carell Chair & Professor & Director, Vaccine Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Dr. James Crowe is Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center and the Ann Scott Carell Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt. His laboratory studies the human immune response to infection for a wide variety of major human pathogens, including many emerging infections. He is the Director of the HUMAN IMMUNOME PROJECT, an ambitious effort to identify the sequence of all transcripts for human adaptive immune receptors. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, and other major professional organizations. His research group uses a very broad array of techniques including molecular and cellular biology, state-of-the-art imaging and flow cytometry, bioinformatics, and bioengineering approaches to attack scientific problems at the forefront of immunity research. The group has been recognized widely as a leader in antibody sciences, for instance as the Best Academic Research Team, 11th Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence Awards, World Vaccine Congress, recipient of the 2019 Merck Future Insight Prize for Pandemic Preparedness, and large-scale research grants and contracts from NIH and DoD, including the DARPA Pandemic Prevention Program (P3).

Johanna Hansen, PhD, Director, Cell Technologies, Protein Expression Sciences, Regeneron
Dr. Johanna Hansen is Director of Cell Technologies in Protein Expression Sciences at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Hansen leads a technology development group tasked to isolate monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of SARS-CoV2 infection (REGEN-COV cocktail). Her team develops high throughput antibody and TCR isolation platforms for infectious disease and cell therapy targets. Prior to Regeneron, Johanna received a 3-year fellowship award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Her research focused on de-immunizing immunotoxins for the treatment of solid tumors and developing antibody phage libraries. She received a PhD in Biomolecular Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin Madison and a BA in Biochemistry from Vassar.