SUMMARY
Adinarayana Kunamneni, Ph.D., has over 20 years of research and professional experience in the fields of biochemistry, molecular biology, protein engineering, cell biology and computational biology. His research focuses primarily on developing tools and technology for antibody discovery and engineering with the goal of generating antibody therapeutics and diagnostics with desired properties for a variety of conditions including, but not limited to, infectious diseases (COVID-19, Ebola and Zika), cancer, chronic pain and ischemic stroke.
With interests in the molecular mechanisms of how proteins work and function in biological pathways, Dr. Kunamneni's team has contributed to the early stages of technology development for antibody ribosome display libraries and tools for antibody discovery and engineering. They have used this emerging technology with scientists within Mayo Clinic and externally in exploratory pharmacokinetics (PK), immunogenicity and in vivo efficacy evaluation and enhancements aiming to treat diseases with unmet medical needs. The ribosome display platform has harnessed the humanization and affinity maturation stage, a clever molecular biology tool to give humanization and affinity maturation more rapidly than any other ribosome display available. That has meant applying knowledge of molecular biology to technology in an ingenious way.
Additional research interests include chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy, transplantation, new drug delivery systems and nanotechnology that can target usually inaccessible dorsal root ganglia (DRG) cells and unload a more potent local drug dosage to promote their silence and a return to their baseline activation state. Through this approach, we hope to create a specific and effective method for the nonopioid treatment of neuropathic pain and the prevention of pain recurrence through targeted drug delivery to the brain and DRG cells.
Focus areas
- Antibody discovery and engineering. Dr. Kunamneni's lab develops multiple technology platforms to discover novel single-chain variable fragment (scFv) and monoclonal antibodies including:
- Ribosome display technology with comprehensive, customized ribosome campaigns for therapeutic antibody discovery
- Naive, synthetic, immune ribosome or phage libraries that use multiple ribosome libraries, as well as immunization protocols with in-line library construction for therapeutic or diagnostic antibody discovery
- Stand-alone or combined humanization and affinity maturation workflows of potential antibody candidates via ribosome or phage display of complementarity-determining region (CDR) mutagenic libraries
- Full kinetic characterization using the Octet biolayer interferometry (BLI) platform
- Macromolecular mechanisms and interactions. With numerous detailed molecular descriptions of antibody-antigen interfaces, the structural study of these molecular interactions has evolved from an attempt to understand immunological function to their use as model systems for protein-protein interactions.
Significance to patient care
The goal of Dr. Kunamneni's laboratory is to develop effective new antibody-based therapies for infectious diseases and noninfectious conditions, such as chronic pain, post-stroke ischemia, breast cancer, blood cancer and liver cancer. This research seeks to explore the potential for using scFv antibodies in the clinic as therapeutic molecules for early diagnosis and therapy.
Professional highlights
- Patent co-inventor, Non-opioid Compositions and Therapies for Pain Management, WO2021041194A1, 2021
- Patent co-inventor, Therapeutic Antibody Fragments, Methods of Making, and Methods of Use, US20210340265A1, 2021
- Patent co-inventor, Filovirus Antibodies and Methods, WO2020185464A1, 2020