Patent 7250297 was granted and assigned to Pieris AG on July, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention relates to the production of novel proteins exhibiting bonding activity for certain ligands, the so-called anticalins. To this end, the structure of peptides of the lipocalin family is modified by amino acid replacement in their natural ligand binding pocket using genetic engineering methods. A like immunoglobulin, the anticalin thus obtained can be used to identify or bond molecular structures.