15-03-2013
The research project, entitled “Antibody Engineering for the Treatment of Breast Cancer”, proposes the bioengineering/designing of antibodies to specifically target cancer cells, and simultaneously engage a patient’s immune system to kill these tumor cells. This study is an important advancement for the development of new and effective therapeutic strategies.
Other co-Investigators are Carlos Novo, from IHMT-UNL, and José Ramalho, from FCM-UNL. The research team members will bring together complementary expertise on the fields of Immunology, Glicobiology, Molecular Engineering and Structural Biology. The teams at FCT will use modern glycan microarray technology (Angelina Sá Palma) for high-throughput screening of antibody fine specificities, and X-ray crystallography methods (Ana Luísa Carvalho), to identify and characterize, at a molecular level, the structural determinants of the antibody-antigen recognition. The structural information thus derived will be of crucial importance for the design of highly specific antibodies.
