ATE Project Talks: Antibody Engineering Hackathons
InnovATEBIO Event
Event Details
Recent
- Fri, Mar 7 2025, 9:30 - 10:30am EST
Event Description
Welcome to the 2025 InnovATEBIO series of virtual ATE project talks. This series features leaders in biotechnology workforce education from across the US sharing their work on exciting projects funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program. The ATE program supports the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation's economy.
Each talk will be 20 minutes, followed by 15 minutes for questions and discussion.
View the whole series of Spring 2025 ATE project talks.
Talk: Using Hackathons to Catalyze Research Projects in Antibody Engineering
Description: Antibodies are used as biological therapeutics, in diagnostic tests, and as reagents for research. Engineering antibodies can improve binding, specificity, and manufacturability. We are using hackathons to create undergraduate research projects that explore antibody engineering and related technologies. Hackathon projects are addressing artificial intelligence and machine learning, cell line characterization, producing antibodies in algae, making nanobodies in E. coli, developing antibody-related games, designing new antibodies based on homology, immune escape, epitopes, and screening assays. We will briefly describe previous hackathon projects and highlight a few of the projects:
- NISTCHO cells (Fredericks et. al. 2024, Nadour, et. al. 2024)
- Antibodies and AI (Antibody Engineers in GitHub, NCBI Codeathons mixai team smith in GitHub)
- iCn3D enhancements (iCn3D)
- Immune escape (Porter et. al. 2023, Lannan et. al, 2024)
Speakers: Sandra Porter, PhD, Digital World Biology, InnovATEBIO, Margaret Byans, Ph.D., Montgomery County Community College, Todd Smith, Ph.D., Digital World Biology, InnovATEBIO
Biography: Dr. Sandra Porter is a digital biologist, web architect, entrepreneur, bioinformatics instructor, and writer. She received her PhD in microbiology from the University of Washington, worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Fred Hutch, spent ten years leading a biotechnology education program at Seattle Central Community College, and fifteen years teaching bioinformatics part time for Austin and Shoreline Community Colleges. In 2008, she started her own company, Digital World Biology, after working ten years in bioinformatics at Geospiza, Inc., a company that made software for genetic analysis. Digital World Biology creates educational materials and works on National Science Foundation-funded projects that support biotechnology education. Through this work, her company created Biotech-Careers.org, a popular website designed to support career discovery and exploration.
- ATE Project: Developing Classroom-based Undergraduate Research Experiences in Antibody Bioengineering
- Learn more about the Hackathons: Antibody-Engineering.org
- View publications
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Event Presentation
ATE Project Talks: Antibody Engineering Hackathons
The presentation described hackathons and how hackathons can be used for curriculum development and community building in biotech and emerging technologies. Two hackathon projects were discussed: Antibodies and AI, and NISTCHO.
Several resources have been created through this project and are available to the ATE community and others.
Many of these are described in publications in peer-reviewed journals or in QUBES.
1. This page has a list of publications with links. The QUBES publications have teaching instructions and data sets.
2. Videos from guest speakers at the Antibody Engineering Hackathons can be viewed here.
Antibody Engineering Hackathons 2022
Antibody Engineering Hackathon 2023
Antibody Engineering Hackathon 2024
3. Protocols for working with NISTCHO cells can be found at Biomanufacturing.org
There might be another hackathon in August. We will post something as soon as we known.