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Antibody Modeling, Engineering, and Design

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Encyclopedia of Biophysics

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Introduction

Antibodies, which are primary components of adaptive immunity, are responsible for the body’s recognition of foreign material and subsequent elicitation of immune response to clear these substances. The specific determinant on the antigen that is recognized and bound by the antibody is called the epitope. The region of the antibody that binds the epitope is called the paratope. The immune system can generate a specific binder for virtually any molecular structure by reshuffling and mutating a set of genes that encodes fragments of the antibody. These genes are known as V, D, and J. Over the last few decades, antibodies have become a major reagent in biotechnology and biomedical research and the fastest growing type of therapeutics (Carter and Lazar 2017; Ecker et al. 2015). The fact that antibodies can bind almost any structure is related to the nature of the antibody three-dimensional structure. While there are several classes, also known as isotypes, of antibodies in...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biolojic Design, Ltd., Givat Shmuel, Israel

    Sharon Fischman & Yanay Ofran

  2. The Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Yanay Ofran

Authors
  1. Sharon Fischman
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  2. Yanay Ofran
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Correspondence to Yanay Ofran .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University Leicester MRC Centre, Leicester, UK

    Gordon Roberts

  2. Dept Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Anthony Watts

Section Editor information

  1. No affiliation provided

    Franca Fraternali

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Fischman, S., Ofran, Y. (2018). Antibody Modeling, Engineering, and Design. In: Roberts, G., Watts, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35943-9_10083-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35943-9_10083-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35943-9

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