SILVER LAKE RESEARCH CORPORATION SBIR Phase I Award,

The investigation of infectious disease mechanisms, treatments, and vaccines relies on animal models. Non-traditional animal models – such as the guinea pig model of tuberculosis - suffer from a lack of reagents, notably monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), used for characterizing subsets of immune cells and the cytokines they produce. For the guinea pig, a list of 25 high-priority targets has been compiled by leading investigators in tuberculosis vaccinology – cell surface markers of immune cells and cytokines for which current MAb tools are inadequate or nonexistent. The production of such phenotyping antibodies through traditional methods is laborious, time-consuming, and expensive.In this project, we will use the EAP Immunization System to produce needed MAbs for characterizing immune responses of the guinea pig. The EAP System uses small synthetic peptides for the induction and preliminary characterization of new antibodies. This methodology has been used by SLRC to produce hundreds of MAbs for targets that were previously inaccessible, including ongoing parallel work for the guinea pig animal model. In Phase I of this project, we will address six targets; the remainder will be addressed in Phase II. At the successful conclusion of this project, new reagents will be available to significantly enhance research capabilities for tuberculosis and other diseases.