The development and improvement of strategies related to discovery technologies of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) (phage display, yeast display, ribosome display, bacterial display, mammalian cell surface display, mRNA display, DNA display, transgenic animal, and human B-cell derived) opened perspectives for the screening and the selection of therapeutic antibodies for, theoretically, any target from any kind of organism. The implantation of a robust platform of antibody discovery technologies allows reaching this goal. Additionally to recombinant antibody selection, antibody engineering technologies were developed and explored to obtain desired characteristics of selected leading candidates such as high affinity, low immunogenicity, improved functionality, improved protein production, improved stability, and others. mAb humanization methods emerged as alternative for generating humanized variants of promising candidates obtained from non-human organism that could elicit an immune response. This chapter contains an overview of discovery technologies, mainly display methods and antibody humanization methods for the selection of therapeutic humanized and human mAbs that appeared along the development of these technologies and thereafter. The increasing applications of phage display technology will be highlighted in the antibody engineering area (affinity maturation, guided selection to obtain human antibodies) giving promising perspectives for the development of future therapeutics.
Part of the book: Antibody Engineering