ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students)
Degree Program
B.E.
Year of Graduation
2024
Faculty Advisor
Dr. Jiwon Lee
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
Fall 2023
Abstract
Influenza viruses cause respiratory illness that affects 8% of the U.S. population annually. However, current influenza vaccines have a limited efficacy of only 40-60%. This highlights the need for a universal vaccine design that can generate broadly neutralizing antibodies against influenza surface protein hemagglutinin (HA). Previous work by our group identified HA-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from serum samples through high-throughput antibody profiling. In this study, three of the identified mAbs were generated using mammalian cell expression and their binding affinity against three HA antigens was characterized via Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay (ELISA). The ELISA results demonstrated specific binding affinity towards B/Yamagata/18/1998 HA but not towards B/Washington/02/2019 HA and B/Brisbane/60/2008 HA. These findings provide insights into human antibody response after vaccination and suggest further biophysical and competition studies to identify target epitopes on HA antigens.
Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation
Ran, Xinping, "Characterization of Influenza-Specific Antibodies" (2023). ENGS 86 Independent Projects (AB Students). 15.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/engs86/15
