Recombinant human antibody technology has been the cornerstone of the uprising of biologics in the pharmaceutical industry. The introduction of various display technologies like phage, yeast, bacterial, ribosomal, mRNA, DNA display and mammalian cell surface display has allowed improved antibody generation programs. The ability to generate recombinant antibodies from available human antibody libraries by using in vitro display methods pave the way to select recombinant human antibodies against almost every antigen. The libraries are a close representation of the B-cell response elicited by the natural immune system. The introduction of various methods to fine tune the antibody affinities has made recombinant antibody technology highly sought after. The ability to engineer specific characteristics of each antibody by design is possible utilizing advanced in vitro strategies. This chapter will focus on the technologies commonly applied in antibody display technologies to engineer improved affinities.
Part of the book: Antibody Engineering