Every year, Antibody Solutions takes part in the world-famous PEGS Summit in Boston, Massachusetts. We are always grateful to be part of PEGS, since it's an invaluable opportunity to absorb the industry’s latest scientific discoveries and to meet face-to-face with colleagues from every corner of the biotech world. It’s a massive event: More than 2,400 visitors participated this year (so attendance was up considerably), but conference organizers still make it easy to catch up with valued colleagues and make new, meaningful connections.
PEGS provides a fantastic yearly snapshot of the industry’s latest innovations and fixations. There was a lot of buzz around B-cell work and how to best mine immune repertoires to get antibodies, which made our presentation topic for this year all the more relevant (more on that in just a moment). Also frequently discussed, both in sponsored talks and on the exhibition floor, were the advantages of (and strategies for developing) bispecific and multispecific therapeutic antibodies. This was no surprise to us, as we’ve observed a marked increase in alternative modalities (including bispecifics) both in the development pipeline and on the market.
As with last year, the use of Artificial Intelligence continued to be a topic of conversation, although the tenor of the conversation has changed a bit. In 2024, there was great anticipation about how AI might drive discovery and development processes (in some cases, possibly replacing experimental methods). This year, everyone’s enthusiasm for AI was a bit more tempered, and there was a general consensus that AI, while an excellent tool that can be utilized for predictive tasks like identifying potential epitopes and paratopes, is not ready for de novo creation of antibodies without the physical efforts normally associated with antibody discovery.
On Wednesday, May 14, I gave a luncheon presentation, “How to get your B-Cells on the A-List: Generating relevant diversity, affinity and specificity from an immune repertoire.” As the title of the presentation would suggest, I used this opportunity to talk in-depth about how to start with the best populations of antigen-specific B-cells and how to get the most from them. While the superiority of starting with B-cells from immune hosts (vs. synthetic antibody libraries) has become well established, there is growing recognition that more than one type of B-cell population is a potential source for therapeutic antibodies. So, a challenge has remained: How to interrogate – and get antibodies from – different types of B-cells, each with different properties, and each requiring different screening methods.
Holding up an example of the chips used in the xPloration screening system while presenting “How to get your B-Cells on the A-List” on Wednesday, Wednesday, May 14, 2025. The slide depicts our use of xPloration for isolating antibodies from plasma B-cells and activated B-cells (hybridomas).
To that end, we unveiled two new components of our CellestiveTM antibody discovery platform: 1) OmniAb’s xPloration® screening system for antibody-secreting B-cells; and 2) our high-throughput rapid recombinant antibody expression system. Partnered with our hybridoma and memory-cell interrogation methods, these systems complete our ability to isolate antigen-specific antibodies from all relevant B-cell populations: activated, memory, and plasma. xPloration is a huge improvement in the antibody-secreting cell screening space. Using a chip that fits in the palm of your hand, xPloration allows us to functionally screen more plasma b-cells and hybridomas than alternatives on the market. The xPloration system proved to be one of the stars of the show when it was announced as the winner of PEGS’ 2025 Best of Show (our congratulations go out to Bob Chen, John Kim, and all of the OmniAb team for this well-deserved honor).
Using a case study, I described the ways in which we were able to identify and then move activated, memory, and plasma B-cell hits through single-cell RNA heavy- and light-chain sequencing, followed by rapid recombinant antibody expression in a human IgG1 format. We found that unique antigen-specific antibodies (i.e., clonotypes) were obtained from each B-cell population (e.g., activated, memory, and plasma), with many germline alleles and CDRs being unique to each population. The improved Cellestive workflow is seamless and allows us to deliver to clients vetted and recombinantly expressed candidates in as little as 8 weeks.
Boston has always been a city of “firsts” in groundbreaking historical and technological advancements. Over our many years attending PEGS, we have been lucky to witness that firsthand. The week’s themes of innovation extended well beyond the walls of the Omni Hotel that hosted the PEGS summit. In the last few years, the Seaport area surrounding the Omni has undergone a massive revitalization project. It’s finished (for the most part), and the results were striking. The place is gold-standard when it comes to 21st-century urban planning, balancing impressive modern structures with greenery and accessibility, making for an inspiringly human-sized urban experience. For a conference like PEGS, you couldn’t have asked for a more appropriate setting.
Views from the newly completed structures and walkways that line the South Boston Waterfront, aka The Seaport.
Antibody Solutions always strives to put its science front and center. I was glad to hear from multiple people that, whether attending our talk or speaking with us at Booth# 204, the conversation was science-based, first and foremost, rather than sales-based. It’s always nice to be told that the science at the heart of your services – not just an abstract sales pitch – is what distinguishes you from the hundreds of institutions that attend PEGS every year. If you weren’t able to make it to PEGS this year, it’s not too late to join the conversation. Contact us today to learn how Cellestive can enable your newest therapeutic discovery.