Our drug discovery science
Our expertise in therapeutic innovation includes target identification, validation & disease positioning; hit discovery; hit-to-candidate optimisation...
Access world-class antibody drug discovery capabilities to discover and develop novel antibodies into breakthrough therapies for cancer via our joint Cancer Research Horizons-AstraZeneca Antibody Alliance Laboratory.
Our standalone lab brings together the combined strength of Cancer Research Horizon's cancer biology expertise with the world-class antibody engineering technology of AstraZeneca to support your novel antibody discovery projects. Our expertise and facilities cover the full span of early-stage antibody discovery, from target validation to lead optimisation and in vivo proof of concept.
Our team of 20 drug discovery and antibody engineering scientists are experts in antibody phage display and associated technologies, and in the expression and purification of high-quality proteins. Our advanced automation and high-throughput screening identify antibodies with the right mechanism of action for therapy and diagnosis.
As part of a multidisciplinary team alongside our experts, you'll have the opportunity to help steer a project with impact for cancer patients, co-author on publications and patents, and bring new skills and tools back to your lab.
You do not need to be funded by Cancer Research UK to be eligible to work with us, and with our simple application and review process, your team could be up and running in as little as four months.
The reagents and the advice and support provided has been excellent throughout. This has brought a new dimension to my lab's research and significantly enhanced our potential impact.
We’re looking for scientists who have discovered novel therapeutic or diagnostic targets for cancer, or novel biological insights into a known target.
Your target should:
You should have:
If you are a researcher with a molecular target for antibody discovery, we are keen to hear from you. Get in touch with us to discuss your research confidentially and informally, and find out about working with us.
We’re the leading specialists in antibody technologies, including phage display and ribosome display methods. With access to AstraZeneca's proprietary libraries, we apply these in a unique workflow for high-throughput screening, affinity maturation and phenotypic selections. We are also able to access additional capabilities from AstraZeneca related to antibody formats, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), ensuring any potential antibody-based therapeutic has a potent mechanism of action.
Our cutting-edge technology and capabilities include:
In collaboration with AstraZeneca, we can develop antibody-drug conjugates which can deliver warheads or toxins to cancer cells, and perform Fc engineering to increase or decrease antibody-dependent, cell-mediated cytotoxicity.
Our display technology scientists perform selections using the world-class AstraZeneca phage display libraries, comprising 100 billion human antibody fragments, to identify target-specific functional antibodies for your project.
Our protein scientists use their expertise to express your target protein in a high quality, functional format suitable for phage display selections and high throughput screening.
Our in-house oncology biologists design sophisticated biochemical and cell-based assays and in vivo models and work with you to identify antibodies with the right characteristics to be a therapeutic or a diagnostic.
We can optimise lead antibodies for binding and function using either our phage or ribosome display platforms.
If you are an academic researcher who has mouse monoclonal antibodies with preclinical efficacy, we can replace the mouse framework with human or perform guided selection to produce a fully human sequence to enable future clinical investigations.
We have ability to switch isotype and effector functions to modify antibody properties.
We can use phage display to enrich for novel monoclonal antibodies on primary cancer cell lines and de-convolute their binding specificity to find novel targets.
Contact our Strategic Alliance Manager, Ewan Hughes McInnes, for an informal, confidential discussion about your opportunity.
Submit a short proposal to us for our Target Selection Committee and we will review.
If your application is successful, you will become a member of the project team.