Antibody Engineering

AtaGenix's Antibody Engineering Platform takes your existing antibody leads and optimizes them for therapeutic, diagnostic, or research applications. Three core services — SPR kinetic characterization, in vitro affinity maturation, and antibody humanization — work individually or as an integrated pipeline to transform a discovery-stage antibody into a development-ready candidate.

10–100x

Affinity Improvement

Humanized Variants Designed

Biacore™

Gold-Standard SPR Platform

Guaranteed

Humanization Affinity Retention

Most antibody discovery projects deliver binders — but binders are not drug candidates. The gap between a screening hit and a development-ready molecule requires quantitative kinetic characterization (is the K_D good enough?), affinity optimization (can we improve it 10–100-fold?), and humanization (will patients tolerate it?). AtaGenix's engineering platform closes this gap.

Choose Your Engineering Service

Service	What It Does	Timeline	Key Deliverable
SPR / Biacore Analysis	Label-free, real-time kinetic measurement: k_on, k_off, K_D. Antibody affinity ranking, epitope binning, drug-target validation	1–2 weeks	Sensorgrams + fitted kinetic parameters + analytical report
Affinity Maturation	CDR-targeted mutagenesis (NNK saturation, error-prone PCR, chain shuffling) + phage/mammalian display screening to improve K_D by 10–100-fold	6–8 weeks	Matured sequences + SPR/BLI kinetic data + expressed protein
Humanization	CDR grafting onto human germline frameworks + back mutation + PTM screening. 18 variants designed, 3 best delivered with affinity guarantee	~10 weeks	3 purified humanized Abs + sequences + SPR data + report

Which Service Do You Need?

“I have candidates — which one is best?”

→ SPR / Biacore Analysis — rank antibodies by true K_D with kinetic components (k_on/k_off). Two candidates with the same ELISA titer can have very different kinetics. Slow off-rate is preferred for therapeutics.

“My lead binds, but not well enough”

→ Affinity Maturation — improve K_D by 10–100-fold through CDR mutagenesis. Especially valuable for naïve library hits (nM → sub-nM) and diagnostic antibodies needing higher sensitivity.

“My antibody is non-human — I need it for therapy”

→ Humanization — reduce immunogenicity by CDR grafting onto human frameworks. 18 variants designed, 3 delivered, at least 1 guaranteed to retain parental affinity.

Common Multi-Service Pipelines

Starting Point	Recommended Pipeline	Total Timeline
Naïve phage display hit	SPR ranking → Affinity Maturation (10–100x) → Humanization (if non-human library)	~18–20 weeks
Mouse hybridoma lead	SPR characterization → Humanization (18 variants) → SPR re-validation	~12 weeks
Rabbit single B cell candidate	SPR kinetics → Humanization → optional Affinity Maturation if needed post-humanization	~12–20 weeks
Diagnostic antibody with low sensitivity	SPR baseline K_D → Affinity Maturation only (no humanization needed for RUO)	~8 weeks