Lichun Wang

Managed to support multiple projects moving forward smoothly, from DNA construction, expression, purification to downstream biophysical analytics. Applied new technology, such as new generation sequencing (NGS) technology, for therapeutic antibody discovery: • Accurately estimated the diversity IgV gene usage of our antibody libraries with different NGS platforms such as 454, Illumia. • Built up an alternative process for mouse hybridoma IgV gene retrieval, thoroughly resolve the pseudo light chain interference. Greatly improve the efficiency for hybridoma process. Combined yeast display technology with look through mutagenesis strategy for antibody maturation. Comparing original candidates’ binding just for hours at 4℃, the half-life and stability were optimized up to one week at room temperature.

Lead team constructed naïve & immunized human antibody libraries for therapeutic antibodies discovery. Many functional candidates were generated for Novartis pipeline projects. Plus, scFv derived from libraries were applied for several CAR-T projects, the farthest ones are in clinical stage. Based on CDR-grafting strategy, successfully humanized several mouse antibodies for projects. In one of them, with just one round design, the humanized antibodies not only keep the function efficiency, same level affinity, but also remove the critical post-translation modification (PTM) sites. This result will be much helpful for downstream development work. Science award for this work by Novartis NBC. Based on B cell selection group's work, established and optimized Single Cell PCR platform.

Focus on affinity maturation of therapeutic antibody by phage display platform.