Scaling HIV Multabody Production with Light-Regulated Expression

Ianessa Morantte of Prolific Machines Inc. in the U.S. with Arif Jetha of Radiant Biotherapeutics Inc. in Canada will develop a biomanufacturing system to enhance production of therapeutic broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against HIV. The system is based on the Multabody™^TM platform, which uses a self-multimerizing scaffold to multimerize antibody fragments. They will combine this with producing cell lines containing tunable light-controlled (optogenetic) gene expression, which facilitates expression of complex biotherapeutics. Stable, optogenetic, host cell lines will be engineered to express multimers, each with a different combination of antibody fragments. The system will be assessed for efficient, high-yield, and high-quality production of HIV bnAbs that could be scaled up at a cost low enough to broadly increase access.