Single B Cell Platforms
Genovac is the premier research partner offering multiple automated single B cell antibody discovery platforms for rare antibody discovery; Berkeley Lights’ Beacon single B cell screening and selection platform
Our automated single B cell antibody discovery platform
Beacon® Optofluidic platform
Genovac now offers the Beacon® Optofluidic platform, which enables vastly superior high-throughput screening of the natural antibody repertoire of an immunized animal. This state-of-the-art approach significantly increases the chances for the discovery of rare functional antibodies against challenging targets like GPCRs and ion channels and reduces the total development timeline by six to ten weeks.
The Beacon platform, created by Berkeley Lights, Inc, is uniquely designed to carefully and specifically isolate, monitor and assay almost any cell type. When used for antibody discovery, it can isolate and identify functional antibody-producing plasma B cells in less than one day, eliminating weeks of work.
Once individual antibody-producing cells are identified they can be exported for cDNA generation through single cell RT PCR and subsequent cloning and sequencing of the immunoglobulin heavy- and light-chain variable-region (VH and VL) genes of single B cells that express defined V genes. Each cell is tracked so that the phenotype can be linked to the genotype. We operate two Beacon instruments and can screen up to 80,000 individual plasma B cells for target-specificity, cross-reactivity, or cell-based functional assay utilizing our fully automated Beacon platform.
Genovac also has capability of screening wildtype and transgenic mice and rat cells on the Beacon instrument.
Beacon® platform advantages
- Reduced total development timeline eliminates weeks of work
- Screening of a much higher percentage of the immune repertoire greatly increases the chances of finding a rare antibody
- Cell-based assays allow native conformation recognition for many target types
- No inefficient B cell immortalization required
- Allows functional single-cell assays for the discovery of specific and functional therapeutic antibodies
- Allows parallel screening for species cross-reactive antibodies