Monoclonal Antibody Generation by Phage Display: History, State-of-the-Art, and Future

Abstract With the success of therapeutic antibodies and the increasing demand for validated and reproducible research antibodies, there is extensive interest in the generation of recombinant antibodies. Phage display is the most established in vitro evolution method to isolate such antibodies from large libraries. In this chapter, we review the development of phage display technology and discuss its advantages and limitations for recombinant antibody generation. We survey different antibody formats used in phage display and discuss different approaches to library construction. Finally, we describe advanced selection methods possible with in vitro selection systems and give an overview of unique applications of phage display on selected recombinant antibodies.