George Georgiou is the Dula D. Cockrell Centennial Chair and Professor at UT Austin, Dep. of Chemical Engineering and Molecular Biosciences. He has authored >300 publications and is co-inventor of >170 issued and pending US patents, an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (2005), National Academy of Medicine (2011), National Academy of Inventors (2015) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015) and several other honorary societies. Dr. Georgiou founded and served as general manager of GGMJD (acquired in 2000), Aeglea Biotherapeutics (NSDQ: SYRE) and Ikena Oncology in 2016 (NSDQ: IKNA). He served on the Board of Directors of AGLE (2013-18) and IKNA (2016-2021). He is co-inventor and led the early development of marketed therapeutics olbitoxaximab and pegzilarginase, clinical stage pegtarviliase and several mid to late stage preclinical drugs.

Dr. Georgiou’s research is focused on: (i) the molecular level understanding of human adaptive immunity in infectious diseases and in autoimmunity; (ii) the discovery/preclinical development of protein therapeutics and (iii) the biology of Fc receptors and the engineering of next-generation of therapeutic antibodies with improved effector functions.

Over the last 10 years we have developed methods for the molecular-level deconvolution of the sequence identities, relative concentrations and functions of monoclonal antibodies that comprise the polyclonal response in blood and other biological fluids.Briefly, these methods capitalize on the Ig-SEQ workflow using advanced LC-MS/MS serum antibody proteomics methodologies coupled with microfluidic B cell receptor sequencing (BCR-SEQ) and related techniques. We have established that the serological IgG repertoire to specific antigens is oligoclonal (comprising <10 clonotypes in some instances) and therefore many orders of magnitude less diverse than the B memory (cellular) antigen-specific repertoire. As part of this talk, I will mention several examples showing of how the deconvolution of the human serum antibody repertoire led to the discovery of monoclonal antibodies that are highly abundant in serum and operate to clear target cells via unexpected mechanisms. Further, we have analyzed in detail the polyreactivity and “developability” of 100s of bona fide circulating antibodies and the results of these studies provide unanticipated insights on antibody biophysical properties relevant to therapeutics development. Finally, as part of this talk, I will also discuss our recent findings on the features of circulating as well as secreted IgA in humans.