Workshop Title: Workshop II: Library Design
Presentation Title: Ankyrin Repeats as a Scaffold for Producing Antibody-like, High-affinity
Binding Molecules
Speaker: Alexandre Mooser
Institution: Department of Biochemistry, University of Zürich
Abstract: New antibody-like molecules based on fully synthetic libraries of ankyrin repeats were
developed, which greatly surpass antibodies in stability, expression yield in E. coli. A crystal
structure suggests why the synthetic molecules surpass their natural counterparts in biophysical
properties. As they are free of any cysteines, they can thus especially be used for intracellular
applications as stable and selective inhibitors in proteomics applications. Specific binders against a
variety of targets with low nanomolar KD's were obtained by using ribosome display, a cell free
selection and evolution method. Functional inhibitors of the kanamycin resistance protein, a
structural homolog to eukaryotic kinases, were further characterized.