Lectures and seminars OnkPat Friday Seminar: Nanobodies as Tools to Study Infection and Immunity
Welcome to OnkPat Friday Seminar, this time with Leo Hanke, Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine, Solna.
Host: Kasper Karlsson, the Department of Oncology-Pathology.
Related publications
A bispecific monomeric nanobody induces spike trimer dimers and neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 in vivo.
Hanke L, Das H, Sheward DJ, Perez Vidakovics L, Urgard E, Moliner-Morro A, Kim C, Karl V, Pankow A, Smith NL, Porebski B, Fernandez-Capetillo O, Sezgin E, Pedersen GK, Coquet JM, Hällberg BM, Murrell B, McInerney GM
Nat Commun 2022 Jan;13(1):155
Multivariate mining of an alpaca immune repertoire identifies potent cross-neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies.
Hanke L, Sheward DJ, Pankow A, Vidakovics LP, Karl V, Kim C, Urgard E, Smith NL, Astorga-Wells J, Ekström S, Coquet JM, McInerney GM, Murrell B
Sci Adv 2022 Mar;8(12):eabm0220
Abstract
Understanding infection and immunity requires precise tools to probe the functions and interactions of the involved proteins. Yet many existing approaches lack the specificity, modularity, and scalability needed to systematically interrogate pathogen biology or modulate immune responses. In this talk, I will present our use of camelid nanobodies as versatile molecular probes to disrupt native protein functions and engineer new interactions in the context of infection and immunity. Through rational protein engineering and chemical or enzymatic functionalization, we tailor nanobodies for diverse biomedical applications, including enhanced detection, molecular tracing, viral inhibition, and targeted immune effector recruitment. Together, these strategies offer powerful opportunities to dissect infection biology and provide insights that inform vaccine antigen design and targeted therapeutic interventions.
Bio
Leo Hanke is an Assistant professor at the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Department of Medicine, Solna. He has been leading a research team since 2023, focusing on developing molecular tools to investigate fundamental aspects of infection and immunity. Prior to that he did his postdoc at KI and performed his PhD work at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA, USA.