Over the past 20 years, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have become one of the most powerful pharmacological strategies in the treatment of various types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and autoimmune disorders. Protein solubility presents a central challenge in developing the required high protein concentration formulations of mAb therapeutics. The current approaches that address this challenge typically involve using different osmolyte excipients such as salts, carbohydrates, amino acids or surfactants. However, these approaches pose different problems including insufficient activity, low specificity and allergenic reactivity among others. Clearly, there is a high demand for novel strategies to increase the solubility of mAbs in pharmaceutical formulations in an efficient, cost-effective and target-specific manner.
Bojan and his team will address this challenge by exploiting one of the central biological interaction partners of proteins, the RNA molecules. More in detail, they will develop a computational software that designs RNA ligands which improve the solubility of aggregation-prone mAb therapeutics in a sequence- specific manner. In a second step, the researchers will commercialize this software for an application in a biopharmaceutical context.
“Notably, the sequence-specific design of RNA ligands for a particular target protein is based on fundamental physicochemical principles of RNA-protein interactions, which were recently elucidated by my team in the context of our ERC Starting Grant project, ”Bojan explains.
Meet the researcher
Bojan Zagrovic, a native of Zagreb, Croatia, received a Bachelor's degree in Biochemical Sciences magna cum laude from Harvard University and carried out his PhD work at Stanford University. After his postdoctoral stay at the ETH Zurich between, he led the Computational Biology group at the Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences in Split, Croatia. Bojan is a group leader at the MFPL since 2010 and has since been the recipient of several renowned scientific awards and grants, such as an FWF START grant, an ERC starting grant and several FWF standalone grants.
This is the first Proof of Concept Grant at the institute. To date, MFPL researchers have obtained nine prestigious ERC grants. This once again highlights the high quality of research carried out at the institute and the Vienna BioCenter.
Chromatin as a gatekeeper of chromosome replication
Mind matters. VBC mental health awareness
The multiple facets of Hop1 during meiotic prophase
Chromosomes as Mechanical Objects: from E.coli to Meiosis to Mammalian cells
Convergent evolution of CO2-fixing liquid-liquid phase separation
Viral envelope engineering for cell type specific delivery
New ways of leading: inclusive leadership and revising academic hierarchies
How an opportunistic human pathogen colonizes surfaces - From pathogen behavior to new drugs
Title to be announced
Decoding Molecular Plasticity in the Dark Proteome of the Nuclear Pore Complex
Probing the 3D genome architectural basis of neurodevelopment and aging in vivo
How to tango with four - the evolution of meiotic chromosome segregation after genome duplication
Multidimensional approach to decoding the mysteries of animal development
Connecting mitotic chromosomes to dynamic microtubules - insight from biochemical reconstitution
Membrane remodeling proteins at the junction between prokaryotes and eukaryotes
Neurodiversity in academia: strengths and challenges of neurodivergence
Gene expression dynamics during the awakening of the zygotic genome
When all is lost? Measuring historical signals
Suckers and segments of the octopus arm
Using the house mouse radiation to study the rapid evolution of genes and genetic processes
CRISPR jumps ahead: mechanistic insights into CRISPR-associated transposons
Title to be announced
Enigmatic evolutionary origin and multipotency of the neural crest cells - major drivers of vertebrate evolution
Visualising mitotic chromosomes and nuclear dynamics by correlative light and electron microscopy
Bacterial cell envelope homeostasis at the (post)transcriptional level
Polyploidy and rediploidisation in stressful times
Prdm9 control of meiotic synapsis of homologs in intersubspecific hybrids
RNA virus from museum specimens
Programmed DNA double-strand breaks during meiosis: Mechanism and evolution
Title to be announced