Research at the TNI

Our Mission

Monoclonal antibodies are key constituents of modern medicine, building the basis for several therapeutic applications, laboratory medicine, and clinical pathology. Yet, the development of novel monoclonal antibodies is expensive, relatively slow, and limited by low throughput.

We seek to solve this critical problem by developing and employing a novel platform for the multiplexed generation of active antibody fragments (nanobodies) against hundreds of proteins to be used in diagnostic, therapeutic, and research applications.

What are Nanobodies?

Unique to camelids (camels, llamas, alpacas, etc.) and sharks is the production of heavy-chain only antibodies. The small variable domain at the tip of these heavy-chain only antibodies -- called VHH domain or nanobody -- can serve as antibody-like interactors that have the ability to access regions larger antibodies can not, making nanobodies a distinctive biological tool with much untapped potential.

Antibodies vs. Nanobodies

Coming in at 15kDa, nanobodies are very small, 10 times smaller, than conventional antibodies. Nanobodies are cost-efficient to produce and are genetically and chemically amendable on both termini. In comparison with conventional antibodies, nanobodies have superior tissue penetrance, efficient serum clearance, and exceptional shelf-life.

Nanobody Development

In brief, nanobody production involves immunizing a host (a llama in our case) followed by multiple rounds of booster shots over several weeks, drawing blood from the llama, isolating the lymphocytes from the blood, followed by a series of basic molecular biology procedures to amplify, identify, isolate, and purify the nanobody-encoding genes of interests. The nanobodies generated through this process can be used for practical applications in the laboratory and evaluated for their potential as diagnostic, therapeutic, and research tools.

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