Mariangela Figini | Staff Researcher
Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori

Mariangela Figini, Staff Researcher, Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori

Figini has been involved in antibody production, characterization and engineering from the beginning of her career starting with the classic hybridoma technology and chimerization up to isolation of human antibodies from phage display library a revolutionary technology discovered in the early nineties.
In the years spent in Cambridge (1991-1993) at the MRC in Sir Greg Winter's group it was developed the technology of Antibody Phage Display that brings to the production of the first human antibody approved by FDA in 2002 (Humira).

Back to Milan, she applied the technology to isolate human antibody recognizing ovarian and prostate cancers from phage libraries obtained from cancer patients. 
She converted many murine monoclonal antibodies suitable for clinical application, into human antibodies using Epitope Imprinting Selection to obtain antibodies with the same specificity but with less immunogenicity. The conversion of a murine antibody against prostate carcinoma antigens in a smaller format (scFv) has been patented and now this scFv will be proposed to the Italian Ministry of Health as radiolabel compound for imaging in prostate cancer patients. 

Dr. Figini has also contributed in demonstrating active complement independent cytotoxicity mediated by chimeric antibodies and in developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) for lymphocytes retargeting against tumor cells.

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There are two parts to the Festival of Biologics: the five world-class international conferences covering Antibodies, Immunotherapy, BioSimilars, Clinical Trials, and High Potency APIs; and an exhibition featuring the most exciting technology and solutions for pharma and biotech. There is a registration fee to attend the conferences. To visit the exhibition is free.


Conference 29 - 31 October • Exhibition & Seminars 29 - 31 October 

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