Antibodies are specialized proteins produced by the immune system which target and neutralize foreign materials, such as viruses or bacteria. Antibodies have a variety of useful applications in diagnostics, therapeutics, and as research reagents. Despite their widespread use there is no standard method to produce antibodies, and currently available methods are labor and time intensive.

CDC scientists have developed a rapid method for producing antibodies with swappable DNA fragments using a PCR based assay. This method avoids lengthy cloning steps, reducing the time to produce an expression ready antibody cassette from a few days to a few hours. Further, this method uses readily available reagents and equipment.

Antibodies produced using this method could be sold as diagnostics, therapeutics, or research reagents. This method could also be used to provide antibody manufacturing services. Potentially, host cells could be transfected with the antibody expression cassette in vivo to target a protein of interest. For instance, this could be used to target infectious agents, such as SARS‑CoV‑2, or other disease targets in cancers or autoimmune disorders.