IBC's conference on antibody engineering; new technology, application and commercialisation.

This was the first antibody engineering conference held by IBC Conferences in the UK, and was the European equivalent of the annual US meeting held in San Diego. The conference provided a forum for an update on progress in all aspects of antibody engineering. Topics covered ranged from the design of libraries and new selection techniques to news of the first engineered antibodies to enter clinical trials. Library size and diversity were shown to have increased dramatically in the last few years, and new formats have been introduced. In parallel, improvements to existing applications and the development of novel selection technologies were shown to improve accessibility to new targets. Exciting developments included phenotypic selections, ribosome display, improvements to bispecific design and the design of active intracellular antibodies. The data generated for recombinant antibodies in the clinic are very promising, with some antibodies demonstrating improvements over conventional therapies and others targeting diseases where no treatment is currently available. Presented below is a summary of the highlights of the conference, with particular focus on natural antibody phage libraries, and lead candidates derived from these libraries currently in clinical trials.