Patent ID: 8293483

Claim:
A method comprising: a) obtaining the antibody heavy chain sequences and the antibody light chain sequences from a population of B cells of an animal, wherein said population of B cells is enriched for B cells that produce antibodies that specifically bind to a target antigen; b) grouping said heavy and light chain sequences to provide a plurality of groups of antibodies, wherein the antibodies within each group are related to one another by lineage and wherein: i. said grouping comprises comparing the amino acid sequences of the CDR3 regions of said heavy and light chain sequences to one another, and ii. antibodies that are related by lineage comprise heavy chain CDR3 regions that have 0, 1 or 2 amino acid substitutions relative to one another and light chain CDR3 regions that have 0, 1 or 2 amino acid substitutions relative to one another; c) testing a single antibody from each of said groups in a first bioassay to identify a first antibody that has a biological activity; and, after said first antibody has been identified: d) testing further antibodies that are in the same group as the first antibody in a second bioassay, thereby identifying a second antibody that has said biological activity.