We have interviewed our Head of Antibody, Scott Lewis, to learn more about Scott, his expertise, and his role at Biosynth.
Can you tell us about your educational background and how you moved into the biotechnology field?
I graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1995 with a degree in Biotechnology. At that time, only four universities in the United States offered this as a bachelor’s program, making it a unique and exciting field to pursue. The vast potential and numerous biotechnology applications intrigued me, motivating me to delve deeper into the subject.
I began my career at a small, private company that produced peptides and antibodies. In that role, I conducted various laboratory tests, learned project management, and gained extensive knowledge about the production processes and multiple applications of these reagents that help me to this day.
Can you share more about your role at Biosynth?
In 2004, I transitioned to Biosynth and overtook management of the nascent Custom Antibody Division. By emphasizing the importance of building strong customer relationships and investing the time to gain a deep understanding of their individual needs, I grew the business >50-fold and into the capacity for handling hundreds of ongoing projects at a time.
How has your role evolved during your time at Biosynth?
My responsibilities primarily began as project management and even lab work. Still, I have progressed to project design and overall leadership of our custom antibody development efforts worldwide over the years. As one of our go-to biologics experts, I coordinate any custom protein expression projects that come our way.
What do you specialize in?
I try to do everything I can to the full extent of my abilities, but antigen design is where I have likely distinguished myself. By being open-minded and always striving for improvement, I developed my methods for this that take into account several important factors that have proven to be relevant to success in producing quality antibodies for our customers. One client even described this as my “super-power”, which was particularly thrilling.
What do you enjoy the most about your role?
Quite often, customers come to us when other companies struggle to produce what they need, so achieving success with challenging projects such as these can be deeply satisfying. Having scientific interactions with those working on subjects with the potential for a significant impact on society, like Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, is another thing that gives me a great sense of purpose. It is also very humbling to see the dedication and perseverance of researchers committed to their cause.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m thrilled to witness Biosynth’s evolution, both in terms of regional growth and overall capabilities. Leveraging our wider knowledge base will be an important facet of our expansion and continued delivery of innovative products and services to our customers.
What do you think are the key considerations when choosing a manufacturing partner to ensure successful outcomes of antibody development?
The ideal manufacturing partner will have the creativity to adapt to new situations, as each customer’s needs can be unique. Overall experience and a willingness to learn are also important to foster the ability to sort through the various options to arrive at what presents the best chances for success.
Once you have gone through development and identified an antibody that works as you need, manufacturing it at a larger scale can be an entirely different process that is more dependent on the stability of the supply chain. Fortunately, this is one of our core tenets at Biosynth.
What are the biggest challenges when developing and manufacturing an antibody?
Once the preferred methods have been decided upon, developing an antibody typically follows a fairly set pattern. Still, things out of our control, like the variability of response and how reagents behave under different conditions, can undoubtedly present issues at times and influence success.
Manufacturing an antibody usually involves moving into an animal-free system, such as recombinant expression, which uses entirely different methods and coordination amongst multiple partners.
What do you think are the most significant opportunities for applications with antibodies?
Antibodies have a wide variety of potential applications beyond their usage as informative reagents in the lab. Using these as drugs or drug-targeting agents holds the most potential for improving quality of life in the future.
This blog is part of a series; you can read our last blog with our Carbohydrate expert Chris Lawson, Ph.D.
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