US Patent Issued to IMMUNOCORE on Aug. 4 for "Engineered immune-mobilizing T-cell receptors with enhanced affinity for HIV-1 gag" (British Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,698,316, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to IMMUNOCORE Ltd. (Abingdon, Great Britain).

"Engineered immune-mobilizing T-cell receptors with enhanced affinity for HIV-1 gag" was invented by Tara Mahon (Abingdon, Great Britain) and Yi Li (Abingdon, Great Britain).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The present invention relates to T cell receptors (TCRs) which bind the HLA-A*02 restricted peptide SLYNTVATL (SEQ ID NO: 1) derived from the HIV Gag gene product, p17. Said TCRs comprise non-natural mutations within the alpha and/or beta variable domains relative to a native HIV TCR. The TCRs of the invention possess unexpectedly high affinity, specific...