Antibodies, like many other natural proteins, are normally decorated with sugars. Optimizing the pattern of sugars associated with synthetic antibodies can have an enormous impact on their therapeutic efficacy. This technology, known as glycoengineering, is the focus of the Roche research centre in Schlieren, Switzerland.

Drawn to Science cheat sheet for Glycosylation of antibodies

Antibodies

Y-shaped proteins that our bodies use to identify and neutralise foreign or malicious intruders.

Antigens

A region on an intruding target which antibodies attach to.

Therapeutic antibodies

Designed by researchers to target a certain disease, they need to be designed just right so the body accepts them.

Antibody-production

In yeasts, bacteria or special cells, starting with genetic information from rodents or rabbits.

Sugar

Used in a process called glycosylation to make therapeutic antibodies acceptable to the human body.

Glycosylation

A process in which antibodies are decorated in a specific way with carbohydrates to make it acknowledgeable by the human body.

In tests, 100 percent of the sugar chains were correctly completed by our galactosyl transferase.
Rainer Müller Roche Custom Biotech
Find out more about the added value of sugar

The glycoengineering technology is a technology that allows you to enhance the effect of an antibody so that it can recruit the immune system to better kill tumour cells…
Christian Klein Head of Oncology Programmes at Roche Innovation Center Zurich, Switzerland
As Head of Oncology Programmes at Roche Innovation Center Zurich, Switzerland, Christian helps to develop novel antibody-therapies, which use the body's own immune system to help fight cancer. Hear him discuss his work at Roche and his use of glycoengineering technology.
More about Christian Klein
Find out more about Glycoengineering

Our cancer treatments are increasingly directed at the human immune system
Pavel Pisa Head of Translational Medicine at Roche Innovation Center Zurich, Switzerland