Patent ID: 8287864

Claim:
A method of treating a disease in a subject comprising: a) obtaining a substituted chimeric, humanized or human anti-CD20 antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof made by a method comprising making one amino acid substitution in the third complementarity determining region (CDR) sequence of the heavy chain of a chimeric, humanized or human anti-CD20 antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof to make a substituted antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof, wherein the antibody is substituted at Kabat position 101 of CDR3 and the substituted antibody or antigen binding fragment thereof has at least one improved characteristic selected from the group consisting of a slower off-rate, slower antigen dissociation rate, higher CDC activity, higher ADCC activity, higher apoptotic activity, greater ability to induce cell death in vitro in the absence of cross-linking and greater ability to kill or inhibit the growth of CD20-positive cells in vivo when administered to a subject with CD20-positive cells; b) administering the substituted anti-CD20 antibody or fragment thereof to a subject; and c) treating the disease in the subject, wherein the disease is selected from the group consisting of B-cell mediated immune disease, autoimmune disease, B-cell lymphoma and leukemia, graft-versus-host disease, organ transplant rejection, immune hemolytic anemia, allosensitization, and cryoglobulinemia.