Per-Åke Nygren
Our main focus is with affinity protein technology, involving both rational and library-based engineering pronciples. A main focus is to develop small and robust non-immunoglobulin affinity proteins via in vitro evolution and explore their use different applications within biotechnology, diagnostics and drug development. From large libraries of a small 58 aa (6,5 kDa), single peptide chain three helix bundle scaffold, constructed via combinatorial protein engineering, we select variants binding to desired targets. The developed affinity proteins, denoted affibody affinity proteins (“affibodies”), have a number of features, such as small size, robust structure, possibilities of site-specific conjugation and possibilities of production via peptide synthesis, making them interesting as alternatives to conventional binding proteins (e.g. 150 kDa full-length antibodies consisting of four subunits) in many applications.
A few examples of present projects are development of affibodies to (a) T-cell markers for targeting of lipid nanoparticles loaded with mRNA to T-cells for CAR therapy applications, (b) markers on pancreas cancer cells for diagnostics and targeted therapy, (c) markers on NK-cells and myeloma cells for the development of so called dual engagers, capable of recruiting the innate immune response towards tumor cells and (d) surface proteins on Pneumococci for the development of new diagnostic tools and potentially infection-blocking agents. The applications for affinity reagents encompass all disciplines of life science, and we hope to be able to contribute with valuable reagents and affinity protein technology expertise in many areas.