Ligand selection or in silico design
Ligand (peptide, aptamer or nanobody) can be selected using experimental based method, or in silico designed using computational chemistry.
A monoclonal antibody that yields high affinity binding is the foundation for today’s immunoassay and immunotherapy. One antibody can only target one protein target and form antibody-antigen binding. The monovalent binding affinity is often weak. A good quality monoclonal antibody is time consuming to develop.
The best-in-class antibody can achieve low nanomolar binding to target
AI software programmed DNA Star achieves picomolar binding by pattern-matching to a cluster of targets
Viruses infect human cells by entry pathways involving distinct envelop protein cluster formations. Inspired by this multivalent binding preference, we developed a DNA scaffold rational design platform. It can produce multivalent binding complex (DNA STARs) mirroring the spatial arrangement of multiple protein targets in the cluster. DNA Star offers a new level of high affinity binding and can be rapidly designed in silico for each pathogen target.
Our DNA Stars are designed to selectively bind to virus target or tumor cell types to achieve sensitive disease detection or target virus or cell killing. Our platform can be applied systematically to target multiple classes of viruses (capsid virus or membrane virus) and diverse tumor cell types, enabling our clients to develop targeted immunotherapies spanning multiple therapeutic indications.
At Atom Bioworks, we have built a design platform based on the following steps: