Pre-Pilot Project
Computational Design of Non-Immunogenic Proteins
Ronald Koder, PhD and Alan N. Houghton, MD
Abstract
One of the largest obstacles lying in the path of designed protein therapeutics is the immunogenicity of the designed proteins themselves. Our recent results, however, indicate that there are an incredibly large number of protein sequences that will perform any given function, leading to the possibility that proteins with a specific function can be designed to minimize immunogenicity. Thus, it seems possible to computationally select functionally non-immunogenic sequences from a large pool of sequence possibilities. This project involves the development of a method to computationally design non-immunogenic de novo proteins, and the experimental demonstration of its efficacy using the mouse as a model organism.
