The immune repertoire's diversity and the immense number of unique clones has spotlighted the necessity of NGS for antibody developers.
“It’s no wonder that NGS allowed us to interrogate immuno diversity it in a way that Sanger never could,” says Néstor Vázquez Bernat in this talk.
“And this is probably why the number of studies using NGS for TCRs or BCRs has grown massively over the years.”
For example, Vázquez Bernat highlighted recent advancements in characterization technologies, such as Bruker’s Beacon, BEAM from 10x Genomics, and Carterra’s LSA and LSAXT.
This talk centres on the synergy between combining both high-throughput sequencing and high-throughput characterisation techniques: “These datasets are very interesting, especially when you combine them with the NGS repertoire.”
However, combining these datasets efficiently is no easy task.
Vázquez Bernat highlighted the need for flexible and fast processing tools, an infrastructure to house vast quantities of data, and intuitive visualisations to provide the fullest possible picture for lead selection.
Machine learning can help in this case, but as Vázquez Bernat pointed out, it’s only as good as the datasets it’s trained on. Therefore, accessible and organized data is crucial for making the most out of AI.
Enter the IGX platform: designed to handle large datasets, integrate various data types, and facilitate data-driven antibody discovery.
The platform can take any kind of sequencing information, whether it be Sanger, single-cell, or NGS, and associate those data with all the available in vitro and in silico metadata. That allows IGX to help you advance the decision of which leads to proceed with.
IGX includes an array of apps from gene annotation to QC of whole repertoire, as well as workflow specific applications like enrichment analysis, hit expansion, and hit selection.
Vázquez Bernat also takes us through a case study of the platform, showcasing IGX’s ability to process and analyse large datasets, identify antibody lineages, and optimize humanization for therapeutic use.
The combination of high throughput technologies and machine learning is crucial for advancing antibody discovery, and the IGX platform provides a scalable and intuitive solution for these challenges.
