Engineering multispecific antibodies with complete killing selectivity through the closed-loop integration of machine learning and high-throughput experimentation
On-target, off-tumor toxicities remain a major barrier for T-cell engagers in solid tumors. We present EVA<sup>TM</sup>, a closed-loop design platform integrating high-throughput functional assays with multi-objective Bayesian optimization to explore combinatorial T-cell engager (TCE) spaces. In a HER2×CD3 case study, iterative design-build-test-learn cycles traversed 44,160 designs defined by valency, topology, affinity and spacing. Compared with a Sobol baseline, EVA achieved 14-fold enrichment of potent, tumor-selective candidates. Multiple architectures reached sub-10 pM potency on HER2-high cells, near-complete efficacy, and <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>≥</mml:mo></mml:math>10,000-fold selectivity over HER2-low models, consistent with avidity gating. EVA™ recovered diverse high-performing topologies and generalized to a second target, supporting density-gated avidity as a design principle and providing an operational template for rapid, data-efficient optimization.
Authors
- Alex Townsend (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8183-7077)
- Michael Mullin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6260-2603)
- Winston Haynes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2376-0630)
- Gino Van Heeke
- Lida Mavrogonatou
- Pierre-Yves Colin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3985-2238)
- S. S. Ravi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0893-4364)
- James McClory
- Justin Grace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1289-3408)
- Tom Ogola
- Leo Wossnig
- Dan Foxler
- Catherine Howsham
- Leo Kassimatis
- Rebecca Mighell
Institutions
- Rubius Therapeutics (United States) (US)
- LabGenius (United Kingdom) (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- mAbs
- Published
- 2025-12-07
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/19420862.2025.2598093
- Primary Topic
- Monoclonal and Polyclonal Antibodies Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00