Antibody Generation with Beacon
Meet our team of experts in antibody discovery, assay development, flow cytometry, immunology, and antibody generation with single-cell cloning using the Beacon® Optofluidic System.
Beacon
Antibody Discovery with Beacon® Single-cell Cloning
At ChemPartner, as the first CRO adopter of the Beacon® Optofluidic System, we take immense pride in providing faster and unparalleled single-cell cloning solutions through this revolutionary technology. Our commitment to excellence and our dedication to optimizing the antibody discovery and antibody generation process sets us apart in the industry.
The Beacon® system has revolutionized single-cell cloning, but its success hinges on the expertise of the team operating it. Our highly experienced and skilled scientists form the backbone of our success because the intricacies of the single-cell antibody discovery process demand meticulous attention to detail. Without optimized reagents, assays, and processes, the final run risks failure. This is why our team invests significant effort upfront to maximize success rates. We understand that precision and accuracy are paramount to delivering top-notch results to our clients.
Let us be your Beacon® to success. Our expert team is ready to show you the impact of precision and efficiency in your research. Contact our team today!
Meet the Beacon® Team
Beacon’s learning curve is both long and steep. To ensure that our clients receive the highest level of expertise and efficiency, we have assembled a dedicated team of scientists solely focused on running projects with the Beacon®. Their unwavering commitment and familiarity with the machine allow us to navigate even the most complex challenges with confidence. Our expertise expedites your research success.

Andreas Loos, PhD
Director, Biologics Discovery
Andreas Loos, PhD, joined ChemPartner in 2021 as the Director of Biologics Discovery and he currently leads the biologics discovery team at ChemPartner’s South San Francisco site. The team was one of the first adopters of Berkeley Lights’ (BLI) Beacon® technology and has successfully used the platform since 2019 to conduct antibody discovery projects.
Prior to joining ChemPartner, Dr. Loos led an antibody discovery and assay development group at Aridis Pharmaceuticals. During his PhD and post-doctoral training in Gent (Belgium), Heidelberg (Germany), and Vienna (Austria), he studied production and post-translational modifications of biologics in plants.

Neha Yevalekar, MS
Senior Scientist
Neha Yevalekar, MS, joined ChemPartner in 2019 as Senior Scientist in the biologics discovery group and currently leads several antibody discovery projects.
Prior to joining the team at ChemPartner, Neha led production, identification, and characterization of therapeutics antibodies for immune-oncology targets; additionally, led the cell line development, assay development, and B cell cloning platform at Compugen & Intrexon.
During her MS at California State University (USA) and her Internships, she studied hybridoma, phage display, cell line generation, antibody engineering, protein expression, purification, and characterization using cell and molecular biology tools and techniques.

Emil H. Palacios, PhD
Principal Scientist
Emil H. Palacios, PhD, joined ChemPartner in 2020 as a Senior Scientist in the biologics discovery group and he currently leads antibody discovery projects and novel technologies development.
Prior to joining ChemPartner, Dr. Palacios led and supported the development of protein detection assays and nucleic acid diagnostics for in-house use as well as IVD submissions in immunology and infectious disease models.
During his PhD and post-doctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco (USA), he elucidated the roles of protein tyrosine signaling kinases in immunological development and evaluated the function of T-lymphocytes in parasitic worm infections.

Mohammad E. Kabir, PhD
Scientist
Mohammad E. Kabir, PhD, joined ChemPartner in 2021 as Scientist in biologics discovery and currently is involved in the antibody discovery team using the Berkeley Lights Beacon® single-cell cloning platform.
Prior to joining ChemPartner, Dr. Kabir handled the production, identification, and characterization of customized monoclonal antibodies at Abcam. During his PhD and post-doctoral training in Niigata (Japan), the University of Michigan (USA), the University of Texas at Austin (USA), and Tulane University (USA), he studied phage display, antibody engineering, protein expression, purification, and characterization using several biochemistry and molecular biology tools and techniques.

Jake Miller, BA
Senior RA
Jacob Miller joined ChemPartner in September of 2022 as a Senior Research Associate on the biologics discovery team in San Fransisco.
Prior to joining ChemPartner, Jake was a member of the antibody development team at R&D Systems and the Diagnostic Immunology team at Beckman Coulter.
Dedicated Beacon® Experts
Animal Species for Antibody Discovery
Beacon Publications
Combined Training Hours
Select Publications
Rapid discovery of CD-28-specific antibodies from rabbits through single B-cell cloning on the Beacon Platform
ABSTRACT
CD28 is a costimulatory receptor for T-cell activation, and CD28 binding antibodies are in clinical development to block or promote T-cell activation[1,2] . CD28-specific binding domains are also used in bi- or tri-specific antibody formats to generate T-cell engaging antibodies [3] . We set out to generate CD28-specific mAbs from rabbits using a single B-cell cloning workflow on the Beacon system.
The Beacon system enables rapid antibody discovery using a function-first approach. Antibody-secreting cells (ASCs) are isolated from immunized animals and placed individually into nanowells (pens) of a Beacon chip. Due to the small size of the pens, the secreted antibody concentration reaches µg/ml levels within minutes, and the functional properties of the antibodies can be tested in sequential or multiplexed bead-based assays with a fluorescent readout. Typical assay duration is 30-60 minutes. Rabbits were immunized with CHOK1 cells stably transfected to carry human CD28 (hCD28) on their surface. Serum samples showed clear, yet low specific titers for hCD28.
At the end of the immunization schedule, memory B-cells were isolated from blood using Ficoll separation and magnetic sorting. B-cells were cultured in an activation media, and cells were analyzed after 4 and 5 days of activation. During the activation period, the average cell size increased and cells proliferated roughly 15-fold until day 5, with cell numbers unchanged after that. Flow cytometry showed a reduction of surface IgG and a clear increase of intracellular IgG during activation, consistent with a shift from Bcells to antibody secreting cells. On day 4 and 5, a total of 32,716 activated B-cells were screened on Beacon, first for overall IgG secretion and then for IgG specific for hCD28. 14,889 cells secreted IgG (76%), and 108 cells secreted IgG specific to hCD28 (0.43% of IgG secretors).
cDNA from identified hits was individually exported from the chip and submitted for VH/VL sequencing. Antibody discovery on the Beacon enabled rapid screening of a large number of ASCs and identification of antigen-specific antibodies within 4 days of obtaining PBMCs from immunized rabbits. cDNA generation and export happened on the day of the Beacon run, and cDNA amplification added another day to the workflow. The method was robust and substantially reduced the hands-on time for rabbit antibody discovery.
Accelerated Discovery of Unique Anti-PD-L1 Antibodies from Spleen Versus Bone Marrow of Immunized Mice by Single Plasma B Cell Cloning on the Beacon Platform
ABSTRACT
PD-L1 is a key inhibitor of T cell activation that is often over-expressed in cancer to escape immune surveillance and promote tumor progression. Blocking antibodies against PD-L1 or its receptor, PD-1, have shown significant clinical benefit in some patients with PD-L1 expressing tumors. Hence, there is great interest in generating therapeutic antibodies against these targets to counteract the immune suppression mechanism that tumors rely on for survival.
Most of the anti-PD-L1 therapies in the clinic have been generated by standard hybridoma technology but it remains to be determined whether superior antibodies with greater diversity, affinity, and/or functional activity could be generated using single B cell cloning. Using the Beacon® platform (Berkeley Lights, Inc., (BLI)), we have screened tens of thousands of primary single plasma B cells to identify unique antibodies against PD-L1. We have immunized Balb/c mice with recombinant Fc fusion of human PD-L1 extracellular domain (ECD) and isolated CD138+ plasma B cells from bone marrow and spleen from an 8 week immunization.
Plasma B cells from both spleen and bone marrow were penned as single cells onto OptoSelectTM chips for analysis. A series of assays were performed in tandem including bead-based binding/blocking assays, cell-based binding to CHOK1 cells engineered to overexpress human PD-L1, and cell-based blocking assays using PD-1. This series of assays on the Beacon enabled identification of roughly 300 antibodies binding to PD-L1, some of which blocked binding of PD-1 to PD-L1 on cells. Interestingly, a majority of PD-L1 specific antibodies were identified from plasma B cells isolated from bone marrow even though the yield of plasma B cells from bone marrow was less than 20% of what was obtained from the spleen. Single plasma B cells were exported by the Beacon platform for antibody sequence recovery.
After reverse-transcription, amplification, and single plasma B cell sequencing by NGS, we evaluated the sequence diversity of anti-PD-L1 antibody hits. Taken together, our results from plasma B cell cloning on the Beacon show that plasma B cells secreting functional antibody candidates can be identified within one week compared to 1-2 months for the standard hybridoma campaign, thus substantially accelerating the antibody discovery process.
In addition, this technology could enable rapid comparison of immunization strategies, mouse strains, and lymphoid organs from which to isolate B cells to maximize recovery of target specific functional antibodies representing the diversity of the immune repertoire.
Functional Evaluation of Unique Anti-PDL1 Antibodies Generated through Single Plasma Cell Cloning on the Beacon® Platform Versus Standard Hybridoma Approach
ABSTRACT
The monoclonal antibody (mAb) market keeps growing strongly with a CAGR of >14% and is expected to reach >$450 billion in 2028. One remaining challenge is the efficient discovery of mAbs with the desired properties, like high functional activity, high affinity, low immunogenicity, long halflife, and cross-reactivity to target homologues in other species to enable animal models. Conventional antibody discovery programs are typically based on the generation of many potential hits followed by tedious downselection of a few good leads.
Novel technologies like Berkeley Lights’ (BLI) single plasma cell cloning platform, Beacon®, promise to drastically simplify and shorten antibody discovery workflows by identifying a much reduced number of highly functional hits within a few hours of sacrificing the animal. This is achieved by placing thousands of individual plasma cells from the immunized animal into nano-wells called pens, and testing multiple properties of the secreted antibodies in a short time frame. In order to compare the functionality of the Beacon platform with a hybridoma approach we generated monoclonal antibodies against PDL1, a frequently used cancer target, using our Beacon single Plasma Cell cloning platform as well as hybridoma technology. PD-L1 is a key inhibitor of T cell activation that is often over-expressed in cancer to escape immune surveillance and promote tumor progression. Blocking antibodies against PD-L1 or its receptor, PD-1, have shown significant clinical benefit in some patients with PD-L1 expressing tumors.
Hence, there is great interest in generating therapeutic antibodies against these targets to counteract the immune suppression mechanism that tumors rely on for survival. Most of the anti-PD-L1 therapies in the clinic have been generated by standard hybridoma technology. We investigated whether superior antibodies with greater diversity, affinity, and/or functional activity could be generated using single B cell cloning (BCC) which could circumvent a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Thus, we generated unique antibodies against PD-L1 via both methods.
A detailed functional analysis of the obtained antibodies showed that the single cell cloning process using the Beacon platform generated less total hits than hybridoma, however, the antibodies showed better functionality.
Case Study on the accelerated antibody discovery of high-quality anti-PDL1 antibodies using the Beacon® system
INTRODUCTION
Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against PDL-1 were rapidly developed by the ChemPartner Biologics group using Berkeley Lights’ Beacon® optofluidic single B-cell cloning technology. The high-throughput automation of the Beacon® system enabled us to identify PD-L1 blocking antibodies within a single day, significantly accelerating a process that would normally take 2–3 months using conventional methodologies such as hybridoma technology or synthetic display library.
Using the Beacon®, we screened tens of thousands of primary single plasma B cells to identify unique antibodies against PD-L1. A series of assays were used for direct screening on the Beacon®. These assays included bead-based binding/blocking assays, cell-based binding to CHOK1 cells overexpressing human PD-L1, and cell-based blocking assays using PD-1. Once positive hits were identified, single plasma B cells were exported by the Beacon for antibody sequence recovery. After single-cell reverse transcription, amplification, and sequencing by NGS, the sequence diversity of the anti-PD-L1 antibody hits was evaluated.
In addition, this technology can enable rapid comparison of target-specific repertoire diversity between different immunization strategies, mouse strains, and lymphoid organs. Through the rapid generation of diverse, high-affinity mAbs, clients can take advantage of this emerging technology to maximize their research success and advancement toward their commercial goals.
Rapid Antibody Discovery Through B-cell Cloning on the Beacon Platform
INTRODUCTION
Several methodologies have been developed for generating monoclonal antibodies. Hybridoma technology is the most widely used method for antibody generation. However, there are major disadvantages to this process, such as being time consuming, laborious and of low-efficiency. Phage display, another common method used for antibody discovery, can often provide limited and biased repertoires due to non-cognate VH/VL pairing. Both of these methods have notable limitations, despite being important and reliable antibody discovery engines.
Talk to a Scientist

Headquarters
1F & 3F, Block A
2829 JinKe Road
Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park
PuDong New Area
Shanghai China, 201203
Contact Us
China: +86 21 5132 0088
US: +1 650 419 9974
Europe: +45 4586 9000