Patent ID: 7118879

Claim:
A method of recovering a nucleic acid encoding a proteinaceous binding domain, the method comprising: providing a variegated population of filamentous phage, wherein each phage, displays on its outer surface a proteinaceous potential binding domain that is physically associated with a nucleic acid sequence that encodes the potential binding domain, the potential binding domains differing through the at least partially random variegation of one or more amino acid positions of a parental binding domain; contacting the phage with a target material such that the potential binding domain and the nucleic acid that encodes the potential binding domain remain physically associated, and such that the potential binding domain and the target material may interact; isolating at least one binding domain that binds to the target material; and recovering the nucleic acid that is physically associated with the at least one isolated binding domain during the contacting, wherein the parental binding domain comprises an antibody domain, and at least one of said variegated amino acid positions is within a hypervariable region of the antibody domain.