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 Dr. Adam Creamer
Senior Researcher & Theme Leader
University of Oxford
United Kingdom |
Title:
Adding a twist to lateral flow immunoassay: replacing antibodies with non-animal derived protein binders
Abstract:
Lateral flow immunoassays (often referred to as rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs)) are a critical component in the point-of-care diagnosis and surveillance of infectious diseases. Antibodies are an integral part of these tests but are not without their limitations. They often have issues in batch-to-batch variability, stability and animal ethics in their selection and production. Here, we employ phage display to develop affibodies, a class of affinity proteins based on a small three-helix bundle scaffold, against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein. We then demonstrate that the resulting binders can directly replace antibodies in lateral flow immunoassays, without a compromise in sensitivity and specificity. The affibody-based tests also exhibit a superior shelf-life due to the ability to refold. Finally, we conclude this work by investigating the orientation of affibodies on the surface of gold nanoparticles, via molecular dynamics, to elucidate the mechanisms behind why they work just as well as antibodies.
This work describes a viable methodology to move away from animal-derived antibodies in lateral flow immunoassays to sequence-defined, recombinant binders.
Biography:
Dr. Adam Creamer is a senior researcher in the group lead by Prof. Dame Molly Stevens at The University of Oxford. He completed his PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College London and joined the Stevens group in 2018. Adam oversees the diagnostics research in the group and his work particularly focuses on novel nanoparticle and protein engineering for point-of-care diagnostics and fluorescent bioimaging.
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