UIC-2015-171 – Anti-FYN-FN3 affinity reagent

Traditionally, affinity reagents such as antibodies are generated using animals. Unfortunately this process is time-consuming and costly, sometimes taking months to isolate binding reagents. In addition, the animals used are not a renewable source of material and are expensive to maintain. In fact, many antibodies generated via animal methods are promiscuous, binding to more than one target. A different strategy is to isolate binding reagents is to use phage-display. In this case, the process is performed entirely in vitro, and the reagents isolated are recombinant (thus renewable). Furthermore, the process itself is much faster than traditional methods, taking only a few weeks. Researchers at UIC have streamlined this process, using phage-display to isolate binding reagents and subsequently using affinity maturation to increase affinity of the reagent. The reagent has been successfully used in ELISA. Nelson Grihalde grihalde@otm.uic.edu 312-996-4129