What to expect from PEGS Europe 2023: Day 2

Ahead of protein and antibody engineering conference PEGS Europe 2023 in Lisbon, DDW’s Megan Thomas looks at what to expect from each track of the annual biologics technology meeting. On Day 2, Wednesday 15 November 2023, the tracks include: Engineering antibodies, emerging targets and therapeutic approaches, advancing bispecifics and combination therapy to the clinic, innovations in CAR T therapy and engineering in vivo solutions, analytical characterisation of biotherapeutics, optimising expression platforms, and the first part of machine learning for protein engineering.

Engineering antibodies

The first track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Engineering antibodies’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address novel platforms, bispecific and multi-specific antibodies, engineering for higher avidity and multi-valency, and engineering for precision targeting, affinity, and developability.

Novel platforms

This session will begin with chariperson’s remarks from Lars Linden, PhD, Vice President, Head, Biologics Research, Bayer HealthCare, which will be followed by a keynote presentation by Agnieszka Kielczewska, PhD, Director, Research, Antibody Discovery and Screening, Biologics Discovery, Amgen. Kielczewska will present: ‘Discovery of antibody-based therapeutics to challenging targets: Platform considerations’.

Thereafter, there will be two presentations, which are:

• Jan Terje Andersen, PhD, Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oslo; Research Group Leader, Department of Immunology, Oslo University Hospital, on: ‘Biology-based engineering of versatile antibody and albumin technologies’.
• Peter O’Callaghan, PhD, Head of Expression System Sciences, Biologics and Licensing, Lonza, on: ‘Solve bispecific heavy-light chain mispairing with bYlok technology’.

This session will conclude with a plenary keynote session, introduced by Enkelejda Miho, PhD, Professor, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, and Managing Director, aiNET. Following this, Rebecca Croasdale-Wood, PhD, Director, Augmented Biologics Discovery & Design, Biologics Engineering, Oncology, AstraZeneca, will present: ‘Benchmarking the impact of AI biologics discovery and optimisation for pharma’. Croasdale-Wood will then participate in a keynote chat, interviewed by Miho.

Bispecific and multi-specific antibodies

This session will feature five presentations, two of which are luncheon presentations. The first three include:

• Sungjin Park, PhD, CEO, Onegene Biotechnology, on: ‘UniStac: Enzyme-mediated conjugation technology for accelerated development of tetraspecific NASH drug’.
• Klaus Wagenbauer, PhD, Founder & CEO, Plectonic, on: ‘Programmable DNA-origami-based T cell engagers: PTE’.
• Damian Trojanowski, Dr, R&D Specialist, Antibody Discovery Group, Pure Biologics, on: ‘Anti-GARP/TGFb1 antibodies in new twist – multifunctional shapers of anti-tumour immunity’.

The two luncheon presentations include:

• Maurice Brozzo, Global Antibody Specialist, Charles River, on: ‘The antibody discovery journey: from next-generation libraries to efficacy and safety’.
• Gail Calvert, Field Application Scientist, Sartorius UK, on: ‘Leveraging integrated and advanced technologies for successful cell line development’.

Engineering for higher avidity and multi-valency

Following chairperson’s remarks from Bruce Keyt, PhD, CSO, R&D, IGM Biosciences, there will be three presentations in this session. These include:

• Chairperson Keyt on: ‘IgM antibodies as receptor cross-linking agents for DR-5 and other TNF targets’.
• Simone Oostindie, PhD, Director, Research and Discovery, Gyes, on: ‘Avidity engineering: A next frontier in the development of differentiating antibody therapeutics’.
• Troy Lionberger, PhD, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Bruker, on: ‘Accelerating functional TCR discovery by phenotyping thousands of live, single T cells in two days’.

Engineering for precision targeting, affinity, and developability

This session includes four presentations before the close of the ‘Engineering antibodies’ track, which are:

• Lars Linden, PhD, Vice President, Head, Biologics Research, Bayer HealthCare, on: ‘Molecule formats for tumour targeting of radiotherapies’.
• Benjamin Hackel, PhD, Professor, Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, University of Minnesota, on: ‘Engineering hyperstable synthetic miniproteins as developable ligands’.
• James Cooke, PhD, Associate Director, Bicycle Therapeutics, on: ‘Engineering bicyclic peptides for precision targeted medicine’.
• Iain Moal, PhD, Scientific Leader, Computational Antibody Engineering, GSK, on: ‘Learning antibody binding affinity using FACS and NGS’.

Emerging targets and therapeutic approaches

The second track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Emerging targets and therapeutic approaches’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address innovative approaches to the challenges of solid tumours, and advances in discovery and engineering of antibodies for non-cancer targets.

Innovative approaches to the challenges of solid tumours

Following a chairperson’s remarks from Kerry Chester, PhD, Professor, Molecular Medicine, University College London, there will be three presentations before the plenary keynote session. These include:

• Samantha Bailey-Bucktrout, PhD, Senior Vice President, Akamis Bio, on: ‘Tumour specific immunogene therapy to deliver protein therapeutics to solid tumour microenvironments’.
• Jonathan Fisher, PhD, Group Leader, University College London, on: ‘Local secretion of immune active proteins for direct and bystander tumour killing’.
• Alessa Schaffrath, Doctoral Student, UKE Hamburg, on: ‘Transgenic llama mice – a fast and flexible single domain discovery tool’.

The plenary session for this session is the same as the ‘Novel platforms’ session in the ‘Engineering antibodies’ track, featuring Enkelejda Miho and Rebecca Croasdale-Wood on benchmarking the impact of AI biologics discovery and optimisation for pharma.

Thereafter, there will be another three presentations before the luncheon presentation. These include:

• Xiaole Shirley Liu, PhD, CEO, GV20 Therapeutics, on: ‘AI-based target and antibody discovery from patient tumour profiles’.
• Torbjörn Gräslund, PhD, Professor, Department of Protein Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, on: ‘The influence of DM1, MMAE, and MMAF on biodistribution and preclinical therapeutic efficacy of affibody-based drug conjugates’.
• Nena Matscheko, Dr, Team Lead R&D Cells and Antibodies, R&D, Dynamic Biosensors, on: ‘Cells meet biosensor – Automated determination of binding kinetics on living cells’.

The luncheon presentation will be given by Hans Gerstmans, Postdoctoral Researcher, Laboratory for Biomolecular Discovery & Engineering, KU Leuven, VIB, alongside Wai Long Tam, Head of Technology Watch at VIB, Technology Watch, VIB. They will present on expression and characterisation of novel GCN-related N-acetyltransferases by Nucleras rapid protein assess system.

This session will conclude with chairperson’s remarks from Kerry Chester, PhD, Professor, Molecular Medicine, University College London, followed by a presentation on broadening specificity of T-cell receptors for HLA-A*03:01/A*11:01 alloselectivity by Vijaykumar Karuppiah, PhD, Associate Director, Protein Engineering, Immunocore.

Advances in discovery and engineering of antibodies for non-cancer targets

This session will feature a range of presentations which include:

• Joshua Tan, PhD, Chief, Antibody Biology Unit, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, on: ‘Discovery of broadley-neutralising antibodies against Coronaviruses’.
• Anthony Stajduhar, Director of Global Business Development, Business Development, Rapid Novor, on: ‘Antibody discovery dead ends and new approaches’.
• Jorge Dias, PhD, Principal Scientist, Alchemab Therapeutics, on: ‘A patient-first approach to discover first-in-class antibody therapeutics’.
• Sandra Ergueta-Carballo, PhD, Project Coordinator, University of Cambridge, on: ‘Advancing snake envenomation treatment: designing the next generation of antivenoms’.
• Pawel Stocki, PhD, Vice President Research, Ossianix, on: ‘Advancing brain shuttle-enabled therapeutics for efficient delivery to cns —translation to primates’.
• Vincent Muczynski, PhD, Director, NovalGen, on: ‘Development of autoregulating FVIII-mimetic bispecific antibodies to reduce risk of prothrombotic events in treatment of haemophilia A’.

Advancing bispecifics and combination therapy to the clinic

The third track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Advancing bispecifics and combination therapy to the clinic’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address translational approaches to optimising dosing, T cell engagers, novel approaches, harnessing neutrophils using bispecifics, and co-stimulatory bispecifcs.

Translational approaches to optimising dosing

Following chairperson’s remarks from Paul Parren, PhD, CSO, Gyes; Professor, Molecular Immunology, Leiden University Medical Center, presentations include:

• Esther Breij, PhD, Vice President, Head of Translational Research, Genmab, on: ‘Bispecific antibodies: preclinical and translational strategies to support clinical dose setting’.
• Ulrike Philippar, PhD, Senior Director & Head, Oncology & Discovery Hematological Malignancies, Janssen Pharmaceutica, on: ‘T cell redirecting antibodies for the treatment of hematological malignancies’.
• Fabian Richter, PhD, Immatics Biotechnologies, on: ‘TCER development: safety aspects from discovery to lead candidate’.

The plenary session for this session is the same as the ‘Novel platforms’ session in the ‘Engineering antibodies’ track, as well as the ‘Innovative approaches to the challenges of solid tumours’ session in the ‘Emerging targets and therapeutic approaches’ track. It features Enkelejda Miho and Rebecca Croasdale-Wood on benchmarking the impact of AI biologics discovery and optimisation for pharma.

T-cell engagers

Following chairperson’s remarks from Nicolas Fischer, PhD, CEO, Light Chain Bioscience, this session will feature the following presentations:

• Mario Perro, PhD, Vice President, Head of Oncology Research Department, Ichnos Sciences, on: ‘ISB 2001: A first-in-class trispecific BCMA and CD38 T cell engager designed to overcome mechanisms of escape from treatments for multiple myeloma by targeting two antigens’.
• Sara Majocchi, PhD, Discovery Program Leader, Light Chain Bioscience – Novimmune SA, on: ‘Bispecific antibody mediated, PD-L1-dependant, CD28 co-stimulation’.
• Imran Clark, PhD, Associate Director, Business Development, Business Development, Nona Biosciences, on: ‘Empowering next-gen biologics with industry leading fully human heavy chain only antibody platform at Nona Biosciences’.

Novel approaches

This session will feature two luncheon presentations:

• Nicholas Field, Principal Scientist, Purification Development, Lonza, on: ‘Tailored CMC solutions to overcome the challenges in bispecific, Fab and Fc-fusion protein development programs’.
• Phil Leighton, PhD, Senior Director, Molecular Biology, OmniAb, on: ‘Heavy chain-only transgenic chickens produce human antibodies with robust immune repertoires and high-affinity binding’.

Harnessing neutrophils using bispecifics

Following the chairperson’s remarks from Jeanette Leusen, PhD, Professor, Translational Immunology, Utrecht University, there will be three presentations in this session which include:

• Chairperson Leusen on: ‘Bispecific IgA to activate neutrophils to kill cancer’.
• Thomas Valerius, MD, Professor, Stem Cell Transplantation & Immunotherapy, Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, on: ‘Neutrophil-activating therapy for the treatment of cancer’.
• Lei Shi, PhD, Senior Vice President, R&D, Biointron Biological, on: ‘Accelerating early discovery through htp and high-speed antibody production’.

Co-stimulatory bispecifics

Following the chairperson’s remarks from David Szymkowski, PhD, Vice President Preclinical Operations, Xencor, there will be four presentations in this session which include:

• Chairperson Szymkowski on: ‘Tumour-targeted CD28 bispecific antibodies preferentially enhance T cell costimulation and activation in the tumour microenvironment’.
• Laurie Galson-Holt, PhD, Director Business Development, Crescendo Biologics, on: ‘
• CB307: A novel t cell costimulatory Humabody VH therapeutic for PSMA-positive tumours’.
• Dimitris Skokos, PhD, Senior Director, Cancer Immunology, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, on: ‘Tumour-targeted costimulation via CD28 bispecific antibodies: Turning immunotherapy “cold” tumours “hot”’.
• Martin Pflügler, PhD, CEO, TWYCE, on: ‘Two targets, two signals: a combinatorial concept for cancer therapy with bispecific antibodies directed to CD3 and CD28’.

Innovations in CAR T therapy and engineering in vivo solutions

The fourth track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Innovations in CAR T therapy and engineering in vivo solutions’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address overcoming the tumour microenvironment, in vivo developments and delivery using LNPs and mRNA, and optimising CARs.

Overcoming the tumour microenvironment

Following the chairperson’s opening remarks from Astero Klampatsa, PhD, Team Leader, Cancer Therapeutics, Institute of Cancer Research, this session will feature the following presentations before the plenary keynote session:

• Sebastian Kobold, MD, Professor, Clinical Pharmacology, Klinikum der Universität München, on: ‘Strategies to overcome CAR T cell suppression in the tumour microenvironment’.
• Melita Irving, PhD, Project Leader, Ludwig Branch for Cancer Research, University of Lausanne, on: ‘Co-engineering strategies to augment T cell control of solid tumours’.
• Françoise de Longueville, Dr, Managing Director / Head of Core Test Lab, Eppendorf Application Technologies, on: ‘Optimising CD4+ T cells long-term expansion process in stirred-tank bioreactors: Impact of the dissolved oxygen’.

The plenary session for this session is the same as previous tracks, and features Enkelejda Miho and Rebecca Croasdale-Wood on benchmarking the impact of AI biologics discovery and optimisation for pharma.

Thereafter, there will be two more presentations:

• John Anderson, PhD, GOSHCC Professor, Honorary Consultant Oncologist, Experimental Paediatric Oncology, University College London, on: ‘New T cell engineering approaches for mitigation of exhaustion and targeting of low antigen density’.
• Chairperson Klampatsa on: ‘Overcoming tumour antigen heterogeneity in the context of car t cell therapy for solid tumours’.

In vivo developments and delivery using LNPs and mRNA

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Ulf Grawunder, PhD, CEO & Co-Founder, T-CURX, followed by two presentations:

• Frederic Thalheimer, PhD, Molecular Biotechnology & Gene Therapy, Paul Ehrlich Institut, on: ‘T cell-specific in vivo CAR-delivery by receptor-targeted viral vectors’.
• Samuel Lai, PhD, Professor, Pharmacoengineering & Molecular Pharmaceutics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on: ‘Viral vectors for highly specific immunoengineering of b and t cells in situ’.

Optimising CARs 

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Ulf Grawunder, as in previous sessions, which will be followed by a keynote presentation from Michael Hudecek, MD, Professor, Cellular Immunotherapy of Malignant Diseases, University of Wuerzburg. This talk will provide an update on our ongoing effort to improve CAR design, immune cell subset composition, and the fitness of immune cells in order to improve efficacy while maintaining safety and tolerability of CAR therapy.

Thereafter, there will be two presentations and a panel discussion. The presentations include:

• Angela Boroughs, PhD, Associate Director, Immunology, ArsenalBio, on: ‘High-throughput screening to enable the selection of a multi-feature, logic-gated CAR T cell candidate’.
• Chad May, PhD, CSO, Serotiny, on: ‘Improving cell therapies with high-througput CAR libraries’.

The panel discussion asks what the next game changer will be in the CAR T cell field. It is moderated by chairpeople Ulf Grawunder and Astero Klampatsa, and will cover in vivo CAR T cells, solid tumour targeting, myriad constructs and atypical CARs, non-antibody designs, scalability and engineering advances, and allogeneic CAR T approaches. Panelists include:

• John Anderson, PhD, GOSHCC Professor, Honorary Consultant Oncologist, Experimental Paediatric Oncology, University College London
• Michael Hudecek, MD, Professor, Cellular Immunotherapy of Malignant Diseases, University of Wuerzburg
• Sebastian Kobold, MD, Professor, Clinical Pharmacology, Klinikum der Universität München.

Analytical characterisation of biotherapeutics

The fifth track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Analytical characterisation of biotherapeutics’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address characterisation of novel biotherapeutics, and advances in analytical techniques and approaches.

Characterisation of novel biotherapeutics

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Christian Graf, PhD, Fellow, Scientific Office, Novartis TRD Biologics. Thereafter, there will be three presentations before the plenary keynote session from Rebecca Croasdale-Wood, moderated by Enkelejda Miho. The presentations include:

• Laura Sewell, Scientist, Biopharmaceutical Development, AstraZeneca, on: ‘Challenges of working with a two-faced bispecific — one size does not fit all’.
• Ioanna Stamati, PhD, Team Leader, Bioconjugation, Antikor Biopharma, on: ‘Antibody fragment drug-conjugates (FDCs): Analysing novel formats with high DAR’.
• Kirsty McHugh, PhD, Senior Postdoctoral Scientist, Fellow in Biochemistry, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, on: ‘Analysis of the diverse antigenic landscape of the malaria invasion protein RH5 by HT-SPR’.

After the plenary keynote session, there will be a keynote presentation by Mark McCoy, PhD, Principal Scientist, Quantitative Biosciences, MSD, on higher-order structure, behaviour, and interactions of novel biotherapeutics. Thereafter, there will be two presentations followed by two luncheon presentations. The first two include:

• Michael Nash, PhD, Associate Professor, Chemistry & Biosystems Engineering, University of Basel/ETH Zurich, on: ‘Comprehensive mutational stability and activity profiles of cancer therapeutic enzymes by proximity-based sequencing’.
• Filip Borgions, Ph.D, Vice President, Global Head of Technical Operations, Argenx, on: ‘Studying structure and function of antibodies using innovative chromatographic and mass spectrometric methodologies’.

The luncheon presentations include:

• Juan Quintana, PhD, Technical Sales Manager, ACROBiosystems, on: ‘Manufacturing high quality proteins for complex applications’.
• Nick Pittman, Marketing Manager, Global Biopharmaceutical Business, Waters Corporation, on: ‘Robust multi-level LC-MS workflows for biosimilar comparability assessment’.

After lunch and a session break, chairperson Dan Bach Kristensen, PhD, Principal Scientist, Symphogen, will welcome in the next round of presentations, which include:

• Susumu Uchiyama, PhD, Professor, Biotechnology, Osaka University, on: ‘Multiple biophysical characterisations of purified and in-process AAV’.
• Elena Karnaukhova, PhD, Research Chemist, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, US Food and Drug Administration, on: ‘Biophysical evaluation of efficient hemin scavengers in the therapeutic development for hemolytic disorders’.
• Sven Malik, Mr, Senior Application Specialist, Applications, Bruker Daltonics SPR, on: ‘Bruker’s SPR Analyser 4 – State of the art SPR data analysis’.
• Kris Ver Donck, Vice President, Marketing & Applications, FOx BIOSYSTEMS, on: ‘Using FO-SPR to select for efficient antigen binders in phage display’.

Advances in analytical techniques and approaches

This session is made up of four presentations which include:

• Christian Graf, PhD, Fellow, Scientific Office, Novartis TRD Biologics, on: ‘MS-based cell bioassays: A novel tool for biotherapeutics characterisation’.
• Paul Dyer, PhD, Field Application Scientist, Halo Labs, on: ‘Total particle analysis with aura; pathway to USP validation and product release’.
• Alexey Rak, PhD, Head, Biostructure and Biophysics, Sanofi, on: ‘Cryo-EM structure and epitope/paratope mapping of CEACAM5 monoclonal antibody targeting’.
• Maja Semanjski Curkovic, PhD, Science & Technology Expert, Process Analytical Sciences Tech R&D, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, on: ‘Interlaboratory study of multi-attribute method by peptide mapping liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (MAM) performance across Novartis analytical development sites’.

Optimising expression platforms

The sixth track of PEGS Europe 2023 is ‘Optimising expression platforms’, which will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address overcoming expression and production challenges of difficult-to-express proteins, as well as overcoming expression and production challenges for unique proteins.

Overcoming expression and production challenges of difficult-to-express proteins

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Ana Sofia Coroadinha, PhD, Lab Head, Health & Pharma Division, Animal Cell Technology Unit Cell Line Development and Molecular Biotechnology Lab, IBET. Thereafter, there will be the following presentations:

• Georgios Skretas, PhD, Director, Institute for Bio-innovation, Biomedical Sciences Research Center “Alexander Fleming;” Founder & CEO, ResQ Biotech, on: ‘Development of specialised bacterial strains for high-level production of recombinant membrane proteins’.
• Alice Rothnie, DPhil, Senior Lecturer, Biochemistry, Aston University, on: ‘Membrane protein production using insect cells’.
• Annie Frelet-Barrand, PhD, Researcher, MN2S, Institut FEMTO-ST, on: ‘Lactococcus lactis, a promising cell factory to functionally express membrane proteins’.
• Lena Tholen, Director, Cell line and Bioprocess Development, FyoniBio, on: ‘Fyonibio’s versatile cell line expression platforms for the development of complex molecules’.
• Marine Houdou, Genetic Engineering Specialist, Polyplus, on: ‘From modular DNA assembly to recombinant protein production at Polyplus’.

After these presentations, session attendees can join the track plenary keynote session with Rebecca Croasdale-Wood, moderated by Enkelejda Miho. Thereafter, the session featured presentation will take place, featuring Ana Sofia Coroadinha, PhD, Lab Head, Health & Pharma Division, Animal Cell Technology Unit Cell Line Development and Molecular Biotechnology Lab, IBET, on the topic of cell line development and engineering strategies for themanufacture of lentiviral gene therapy viral vectors.

The session ends with two presentations and two luncheon presentations. The first two include:

• Maren Schubert, PhD, Research Group Leader, Department of Biotechnology, Technical University of Braunschweig, on: ‘Baculovirus-free expression of virus-like-particles in insect cells for antibody development’.
• Josi Buerger, Associate Principal Scientist, R&D, Lonza Biologics, on: ‘Harnessing simplicity with the TheraPRO CHO media system’.

The luncheon presentations include:

• Matthias Hillenbrand, PhD, Head, Infectious Disease Research & Biosafety Officer, Memo Therapeutics, on: ‘Best in class antiviral antibodies from cognate recombinant antibody repertoires of human donors’.
• Julia Su, PhD, Associate Director of BD, Protein Sciences, WuXi Biologics, on: ‘strategies for unveiling optimal bispecific antibody pairings’.

Overcoming expression and production challenges for unique proteins

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Mercedes Márquez Martínez, PhD, Technical Coordinator & Acting Scientific Director, Protein Production Platform (PPP) – Nanbiosis, Autonomous, University of Barcelona (UAB). This will be followed by a keynote presentation by Robert Roth, PhD, Director, Protein Expression & Molecular Biology, Discovery Biology, R&D Biopharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, on: ‘An Automated DNA assembly framework enables rapid and scalable plasmid generation for drug discovery applications’.

The following presentations will follow:

• Mercedes Márquez Martínez, PhD, Technical Coordinator & Acting Scientific Director, Protein Production Platform (PPP) – Nanbiosis, Autonomous, University of Barcelona (UAB), on: ‘Host comparative production of recombinant proteins for assembling as nano- and micro-scale materials for drug delivery’.
• Alexandra Baer, PhD, R&D Manager for Upstream Development of Mammalian Cells, Recombinant Proteins, Bioneer, on: ‘CLD platform optimisation for generation of high titre CHO cell lines at Bioneer’.
• Peter O’Callaghan, PhD, Head of Expression System Sciences (Biologics and Licensing), Lonza, on: ‘Solving a key challenge in immunotherapeutic production with the GS System’.
• Esperanza Rivera de Torre, PhD, Assistant Professor, Center for Antibody Technologies, Department of Bioengineering, Technical University of Denmark, on: ‘Venom on demand: optimising snake toxin yield, folding, and purity in E coli and P pastoris with biotinylation, solubility, and purification tags’.
• Anna Makela, PhD, Senior Scientist, Department of Virology, University of Helsinki, on: ‘Development of a broadly neutralising intranasal anti-SARS-CoV2 trimeric sherpabody’.
• Stefan Kittler, PhD, Postdoc Researcher, Institute of Chemical Environmental & Biological, TU Wien, on: ‘Recombinant Protein L: Production, purification and characterisation of a universal binding ligand’.

The session will finish with a panel discussion on protein production lab challenges, focusing on methodologies, strategies and the art of expressing recombinant proteins. The panel is hosted by Richard Altman, MS, Field Application Scientist, Life Science Solutions, Thermo Fisher Scientific and will cover strategies on how to manage “top priority” projects, total workflow efficiency, the importance of tech development to long-term success, troubleshooting strategies, and how much time should be spent before moving to the next option. Panelists include:

• Nicola Burgess-Brown, PhD, Director of Enzymology and Protein Engineering, Exact Sciences Innovation
• Peter Schmidt, Director Protein Biochemistry, CSL Research
• Bjørn Voldborg, MSc, Head, National Biologics Facility, DTU Bioengineering, Technical University of Denmark

Machine learning for protein engineering: Part 1 

The seventh and final track of Day 2 at PEGS 2023 is the first part of ‘Machine learning for protein engineering’. It will feature a range of sessions made up of presentations, talks and posters which address de novo design use cases, implementation challenges and solutions, and emerging models and platforms.

De novo design use cases

This session will begin with chairperson’s remarks from Tushar Jain, PhD, Principal Scientist, Computational Biology, Adimab LLC. Thereafter, presentations include:

• Nathan Frey, PhD, Machine Learning Scientist, Prescient Design, a Genentech Company, on: ‘Lab-in-the-;oop, an ML-driven platform for automated molecular discovery and design’.
• Yanay Ofran, PhD, Founder, CEO, Biolojic Design, on: ‘Generation and experimental validation of novel de novo abs with unique functionalities’.
• Lucas Kraft, Senior Research Scientist, Translational, AbCellera, on: ‘Selecting optimal antibodies for IND-enabling studies with an integrated high-throughput & lead assessment platform’.

The track’s plenary keynote session will then take place, with Rebecca Croasdale-Wood presenting on benchmarking the impact of AI biologics discovery and optimisation for pharma, introduced and interviewed by Enkelejda Miho.

The rest of the session includes a keynote from Klaus Liedl, PhD, Professor, Head, General, Inorganic, & Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, on antibody structure and dynamics in solution, as well as the following presentations:

• Tushar Jain, PhD, Principal Scientist, Computational Biology, Adimab LLC, on: ‘Accelerating the discovery pipeline with ML: From library design to discovery and optimisation, and early developability screening’.
• Crystal Richardson, Ph.D, Business Partnership Manager, Azenta Life Sciences, on: ‘Innovative antibody discovery workflow leveraging artificial intelligence to prioritise leads’.
• Patrick Doonan, Ph.D., Director of Antibody Engineering, Antibody Discovery, XtalPi, in the luncheon presentation slot, on: ‘Smart people solve problems. AI geniuses avoid them.

Implementation challenges and solutions

This session includes chairperson’s remarks from Jeffrey Ruffolo, PhD, Machine Learning Scientist, Profluent Bio, followed by a presentation from Hubert Kettenberger, PhD, Head, Computational Protein Engineering, Roche, on developing internal AI capabilities via external collaborations and internal resources.

Emerging models and platforms

This session includes a range of presentations including:

• Marc Oeller, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Mann Group, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, on: ‘Implementation of CamSol using machine learning’
• Satoshi Tamaki, PhD, CSO, MOLCURE, on: ‘AI-driven de novo antibody discovery’.
• Charlotte Deane, PhD, Professor, Structural Bioinformatics, Statistics, University of Oxford; Chief Scientist, Biologics AI, Exscientia, giving a featured presentation on generative antibody modelling.
• Nathan Higginson-Scott, PhD, CTO, Seismic Therapeutic, on: ‘Integration of machine learning, structural biology, and wet lab data to augment drug discovery for autoimmune diseases’.
• Anna Puszkarska, PhD, Senior Machine Learning Scientist, Biologics Engineering, AstraZeneca, on: ‘Machine learning for biomolecule engineering’.
• Jeffrey Ruffolo, PhD, Machine Learning Scientist, Profluent Bio, on: ‘Generative modelling for functional protein design’.