Member Listing – Clara Schoeder

Protein design for novel immunotherapeutic drugs, such as genetherapy vectors (AAV), cellular therapeutics (CAR T cell therapy), antibody design and vaccine design

The Schoeder lab is interested in using and developing new computational protein design methods for the development of novel immunotherapeutic drugs. A major focus of the lab is understanding the interactions of the commonly used gene therapy vector Adeno-associated virus (AAV) with attachment factors, allowing for the active design of these interactions. We are also actively designing cellular therapeutics such as chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) for CAR T cell therapy. The main recognition in the CAR is mediated by single chain variable fragments (scFv’s) of antibodies, which we are designing and optimizing for their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic behavior. Design and optimization of new vaccine candidates through stabilization, epitope-focusing for various viral diseases is another focus of the lab. We combine experimental work and computational design in a tight feedback loop that allows us to drive the project and produce new drug candidates, while we optimize computational methods.

protein design, de novo design, vaccine and antibody design, design of therapeutics

2016