Niopek Lab at IPMB receives ERC Synergy Grant to decode antibody specificity with artificial intelligence

The Niopek Lab at IPMB and three partner teams in Germany, the UK and the US have jointly been awarded an ERC Synergy Grant of approximately €10 million over six years to predict antibody specificity and design tailored immune responses. The consortium brings together teams led by Nina Papavasiliou (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ, Heidelberg), Bill Wickstead (University of Nottingham, UK), Monica Mugnier (Johns Hopkins University, USA) and Dominik Niopek (IPMB, Heidelberg University).

Predicting what an antibody recognizes from its amino acid sequence alone remains a major challenge in immunology. The ERC Synergy project TrypanoFormer will tackle this problem by integrating expertise from parasitology, immunology, protein design and machine learning. Specifically, the researchers will harness trypanosomes as living data factories to generate extensive antibody–antigen datasets for training AI models capable of predicting which antigens antibodies recognize. On top, the team will implement a new antigen display platform to elicit tailored antibody responses.

The research, which is part of Heidelberg’s Cluster of Excellence SynthImmune, could open new avenues for precision diagnostics and immune engineering.