Helpful information and background reading

Antibody structure and function

This article discusses antibody structure and compares the structure of antibodies to the structure of T cell receptors. (BCR is the New Antibody, TCR is still a T cell receptor)

Antibody manufacturing

Over 100 antibody-based therapeutics have been approved by the FDA. Most of these drugs are made by mammalian cells that secrete the antibodies into the culture media. The process used to purify the antibodies and prepare them for use is called "downstream processing."

In this webinar (Teaching mAb Production: from High Tech to Low Tech), Dr. Margaret Bryans discusses the steps in downstream processing and presents an online module for learning about this important part of biomanufacturing.

iCn3D

iCn3D is a versatile molecular viewing program that has some advantages for use in education. It may help to practice with iCn3D before the hackathon.

Here is a playlist of several short videos that introduce basic functions of iCn3D.

IEDB (the Immune Epitope Database)

IEDB contains a wide variety of epitopes from multiple organisms.

This webinar presents an introduction to using IEDB for looking at SARS-CoV-2 epitopes.

Here's a YouTube video with an introduction to IEDB:

Overview of the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB)

Here is a short project with IEDB you might like to try.

Anti-SARS vs. Variants

This video shows how iCn3D can be used to compare different structures of SARS-CoV-2: Using aligned structures to view a conformational change in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein