This Bioengineering Research Partnership will develop biomolecular analysis and design tools for engineering next-generation therapeutic antibodies for cancer therapies. Generating antibodies to bind targets whose expression is increased in tumor cells has been a promising therapeutic approach for many years. However, antibody binding can produce a variety of different cellular responses and, ultimately, control over tumor cells will require careful study of the relationship between antibody binding and cellular response so that appropriate binding properties can be engineered to produce desired responses. In the research proposed here, antibodies against epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) will be isolated and engineered by directed evolution, guided by computational docking predictions and quantitative analysis of cellular responses to altered EGFR signaling, dimerization, and trafficking. EGFR is overexpressed in a broad spectrum of epithelial cancers, and blocking antibodies are currently progressing favorably through clinical immune response and limitations of screening assays rather than rational design for these initial antibody drugs, and consequently the molecular mechanism of efficacy in vivo is not fully understood. Targeting specific EGFR surfaces with antibodies designed to maximize receptor antagonism and downregulation should result in greater therapeutic efficacy. The proposed research will develop approaches applicable to antibody design against a broad range of targets, particularly cell surface receptors. The BRP team integrates expertise in protein engineering, cellular bioengineering, computational protein biophysics candidates; generic tools for engineering protein/protein recognition; and will develop analytical approaches to biological response modification via combined quantitative cell biology and protein engineering.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01CA096504-01
Application #
6491561
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-ET-1 (01))
Program Officer
Welch, Anthony R
Project Start
2002-09-13
Project End
2007-08-31
Budget Start
2002-09-13
Budget End
2003-08-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2002
Total Cost
$780,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department
Engineering (All Types)
Type
Schools of Engineering
DUNS #
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02139
Chen, Tiffany F; Li, Kevin K; Zhu, Eric F et al. (2018) Artificial Anti-Tumor Opsonizing Proteins with Fibronectin Scaffolds Engineered for Specificity to Each of the Murine Fc?R Types. J Mol Biol 430:1786-1798
Rothenberg, Daniel A; Taliaferro, J Matthew; Huber, Sabrina M et al. (2018) A Proteomics Approach to Profiling the Temporal Translational Response to Stress and Growth. iScience 9:367-381
Yoneyama, Toshie; Gorry, Michael; Sobo-Vujanovic, Andrea et al. (2018) ADAM10 Sheddase Activity is a Potential Lung-Cancer Biomarker. J Cancer 9:2559-2570
Kelly, Ryan L; Le, Doris; Zhao, Jessie et al. (2018) Reduction of Nonspecificity Motifs in Synthetic Antibody Libraries. J Mol Biol 430:119-130
Cantor, Aaron J; Shah, Neel H; Kuriyan, John (2018) Deep mutational analysis reveals functional trade-offs in the sequences of EGFR autophosphorylation sites. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 115:E7303-E7312
Kauke, Monique J; Traxlmayr, Michael W; Parker, Jillian A et al. (2017) An engineered protein antagonist of K-Ras/B-Raf interaction. Sci Rep 7:5831
Chen, Tiffany F; Sazinsky, Stephen L; Houde, Damian et al. (2017) Engineering Aglycosylated IgG Variants with Wild-Type or Improved Binding Affinity to Human Fc Gamma RIIA and Fc Gamma RIIIAs. J Mol Biol 429:2528-2541
Wittrup, K Dane (2017) Antitumor Antibodies Can Drive Therapeutic T Cell Responses. Trends Cancer 3:615-620
Zweemer, Annelien J M; French, Cory B; Mesfin, Joshua et al. (2017) Apoptotic Bodies Elicit Gas6-Mediated Migration of AXL-Expressing Tumor Cells. Mol Cancer Res 15:1656-1666
Emdal, Kristina B; Dittmann, Antje; Reddy, Raven J et al. (2017) Characterization of In Vivo Resistance to Osimertinib and JNJ-61186372, an EGFR/Met Bispecific Antibody, Reveals Unique and Consensus Mechanisms of Resistance. Mol Cancer Ther 16:2572-2585

Showing the most recent 10 out of 121 publications