Natural, recombinant, chimeric, humanized, modified, in the form of fragments, chemically coupled or genetically fused, antibody formats it is now possible to generate are multiple, with a very large sample of molecules whose biochemical, structural and functional characteristics are suitable for many uses.

Team Leader
Didier Boquet
didier.boquet@cea.fr

The role of antibodies

Antibodies are molecules that play a central role in the areas of diagnosis and therapy with forty monoclonal antibodies today used in humans and several hundred being validated.
The expertise of the team in antibody engineering has generated different recombinant antibody formats such as scFv or diabodies for diagnostic applications in ovarian cancer, in collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research Montpellier and the team of Dr. A. Pellegrin. Indeed, these antibody fragments by their pharmacokinetic properties of diffusion and affinity are a class of molecules particularly well adapted to carry out in vivo cellular immunotherapy as well as in the in vivo imaging field.

MRI tracers

The team is also developing tracers for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). This cross-sectional research involves the U1051 INSERM team of neurosurgeons (Pr. H. Duffau), physical chemists from the Paris 13 University (Pr. L. Motte), physicists from Neurospin (Dr. S. Mériaux, CEA) and is intended to enable the detection of cancer stem cells in glioblastoma by MRI.

Polymers' action on antibodies

In collaboration with the group of Dr. C.Tribet (ENS Paris), the team studied the action of polymers on the folding of antibody fragments and their stabilization in solution, to develop new approaches of formulation of these proteins for therapeutic or diagnostic applications.