Epitope binning array of mAbs is a practical application of blocking assays in a diagnostic or research setting. The quest for a mAb that targets a specific region (epitope) on an antigen is often more important than the identification of a tightly-binding mAb, because affinity can be matured via standard protein engineering protocols. Creative Biolabs has been a leader in developing reproducible, high-throughput analytical techniques to characterize monoclonal antibodies by epitope binning.

Antibodies are tested in a pairwise combinatorial manner, and those that compete for the same binding region are grouped together into bins. Antibodies that target similar epitopes often share similar functions. The ability to generate this information early in the drug discovery process enables researchers to “eliminate the funnel” by reducing the number of potential antibody candidates while maintaining epitope diversity. Binning assays can be highly informative to the discovery of therapeutic mAbs and can be predictive of functional activity.

Technical progress in human antibody discovery allows for the selection of hundreds of high affinity antibodies against many therapeutically relevant targets. Creative biolabs has introduced several emerging commercial platforms for epitope binning, including ForteBio Octet platform, ProteOn array system, Biacore system and IBIS MX96 & CFM, to handle binning of large numbers of antibodies simultaneously in an automated mode by redesigning the concept of a flow channel and the way in which samples are applied and/or delivered