The Development of a Canine Single chain Phage Antibody Library to Isolate Recombinant Antibodies for use in Translational Cancer Research

Monoclonal antibodies form compelling diagnostic and therapeutic medicines for many human diseases including cancer. However the development of novel monoclonal antibodies to a more diverse range of clinically relevant targets than currently exists is hampered by the paucity of immune competent animal models in which to test the efficacy of new biological medicines. As a result there is a relatively high failure rate for new drug leads being approved for use in human populations. Spontaneous tumors in companion animals specifically the canine species-can share important genetic clinical and immunologic characteristics with corresponding human diseases. Naturally occurring canine cancers can therefore form the foundation for disease models that take into account whole organism physiology. Towards this end a robust methodology was developed to clone and archive a highly diverse naive canine scFv M13 phage display library. This library can be used for isolating canine immunotolerant monoclonal antibodies that could be tested in preclinical canine diseases and accelerate strategies for improving human health management.