Spaltudaq: B-ing better

Spaltudaq Corp. thinks it has found a way to generate disease-specific human monoclonal antibodies in a fraction of the time required by human transgenic mouse methods. Moreover, the company expects its technique to generate a more comprehensive pool of relevant human antibodies than generation methods involving mice or bacteria.

Instead of working with immortalized transgenic mouse cells or human hybridomas, the company's in situ tumor antibody rescue (I-STAR) technology turns B cells harvested from diseased patients into IgG-secreting cells. Spaltudaq initially is focused on cancer and infectious diseases. For solid tumors, the company's technology takes B cells from the tumor itself; for infections, the B cells are harvested from the blood...