A Festschrift Celebrating Dr. Dimiter Stanchev Dimitrov: Antibodies, Innovation, and Impact on Infectious Disease and Cancer Research

A special issue of Antibodies (ISSN 2073-4468).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 4287

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Biologics Research, Sanofi, Framingham, MA 01701, USA
Interests: antibody discovery; immunoinformatics; protein/antibody engineering; computational biology
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Guest Editor
Antibody Engineering and Drug Discovery Group, MOE/MOH Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, 131 Dong An Road, Shanghai 200032, China
Interests: monoclonal antibodies; antibody engineering; Fc receptors; immunotherapy of cancer; infectious diseases
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
Interests: antibody development and engineering; phage and yeast display for antibody and T cell receptors (TCR); chimeric antigen receptors based T cells and NK cells therapeutics (CAR-T and CAR-NK); bispecific antibody against cancer and infectious disease (BiKE and BiTE); T cell receptors (TCRs) engineering and TCR modified T cells therapeutics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are thrilled to announce a Special Issue dedicated to celebrating Dr. Dimiter Stanchev Dimitrov, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Antibodies. Dr. Dimitrov received his education at the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, where he earned both his BSc and PhD in 1976. He furthered his academic achievements by obtaining an ScD from the Bulgarian Academy of Science in 1984. His three decades at the NIH have been marked by pioneering work in antibody therapeutics, earning him recognition as a Senior Biomedical Researcher and an NCI Outstanding Mentor. Dr. Dimitrov also served as a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Antibody Therapeutics at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Dimitrov was named one of the “Science Superheroes” during the COVID-19 pandemic for his work on monoclonal antibodies. His groundbreaking research has led to innovative therapies targeting a diverse range of illnesses, from cancer and HIV-1 to emerging and biodefense-related viruses.

He has made vital contributions to the development and use of human monoclonal antibodies and has published over 500 research articles with 40,000 citations. He is renowned for his work on display/screening/library methodologies and antibody engineering, including various formats such as full-size antibodies, antibody fragments, engineered protein domains, CARs, bispecific and multispecific antibodies, ADCs, BiTEs, and BiKEs. His dedication to clinical research collaboration has paved the way for groundbreaking advancements in antibody-based medicine.

For this Special Issue, we welcome original and review papers that reflect the breadth and depth of Dr. Dimitrov’s work. We eagerly await your contributions to this special edition of Antibodies, which promises to celebrate Dr. Dimitrov’s remarkable achievements and inspire future generations of scientists to continue his legacy of pioneering antibody therapeutics and immunotherapies.

Dr. Ponraj Prabakaran
Prof. Dr. Tianlei Ying
Dr. Wei Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Antibodies is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • monoclonal antibodies
  • innovative therapies
  • full-size antibodies
  • antibody fragments

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2303 KiB  
Article
Antibody Recognition of Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2 (HER2) Juxtamembrane Domain Enhances Anti-Tumor Response of Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T Cells
by Guangyu Zhou, Shengyu Fu, Yunsen Zhang, Shuang Li, Ziang Guo, Defang Ouyang, Tianlei Ying, Yinying Lu and Qi Zhao
Antibodies 2024, 13(2), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/antib13020045 - 7 Jun 2024
Viewed by 1506
Abstract
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy shows promise in treating malignant tumors. However, the use of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) CAR-T cells carries the risk of severe toxicity, including cytokine release syndrome, due to their “on-target off-tumor” recognition of HER2. [...] Read more.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy shows promise in treating malignant tumors. However, the use of human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) CAR-T cells carries the risk of severe toxicity, including cytokine release syndrome, due to their “on-target off-tumor” recognition of HER2. Enhancing the quality and functionality of HER2 CARs could greatly improve the therapeutic potential of CAR-T cells. In this study, we developed a novel anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody, Ab8, which targets domain III of HER2, distinct from the domain IV recognition of trastuzumab. Although two anti-HER2 mAbs induced similar levels of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, trastuzumab-based CAR-T cells exhibited potent antitumor activity against HER2-positive cancer cells. In conclusion, our findings provide scientific evidence that antibody recognition of the membrane-proximal domain promotes the anti-tumor response of HER2-specific CAR-T cells. Full article
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14 pages, 2589 KiB  
Article
Identification of a Fully Human Antibody VH Domain Targeting Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK) with Applications in ALK-Positive Solid Tumor Immunotherapy
by Chuan Chen, Zehua Sun, Zening Wang, Seungmin Shin, Abigail Berrios, John W. Mellors, Dimiter S. Dimitrov and Wei Li
Antibodies 2024, 13(2), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/antib13020039 - 7 May 2024
Viewed by 2063
Abstract
The anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK, CD247) is a potential target for antibody-based therapy. However, no antibody-based therapeutics targeting ALK have entered clinical trials, necessitating the development of novel antibodies with unique therapeutic merits. Single-domain antibodies (sdAb) bear therapeutic advantages compared to the full-length [...] Read more.
The anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK, CD247) is a potential target for antibody-based therapy. However, no antibody-based therapeutics targeting ALK have entered clinical trials, necessitating the development of novel antibodies with unique therapeutic merits. Single-domain antibodies (sdAb) bear therapeutic advantages compared to the full-length antibody including deeper tumor penetration, cost-effective production and fast washout from normal tissues. In this study, we identified a human immunoglobulin heavy chain variable domain (VH domain) (VH20) from an in-house phage library. VH20 exhibits good developability and high specificity with no off-target binding to ~6000 human membrane proteins. VH20 efficiently bound to the glycine-rich region of ALK with an EC50 of 0.4 nM and a KD of 6.54 nM. Both VH20-based bispecific T cell engager (TCE) and chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR Ts) exhibited potent cytolytic activity to ALK-expressing tumor cells in an ALK-dependent manner. VH20 CAR Ts specifically secreted proinflammatory cytokines including IL-2, TNFα and IFNγ after incubation with ALK-positive cells. To our knowledge, this is the first reported human single-domain antibody against ALK. Our in vitro characterization data indicate that VH20 could be a promising ALK-targeting sdAb with potential applications in ALK-expressing tumors, including neuroblastoma (NBL) and non-small cell lung cancer. Full article
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