Sharon Craggs 
A question we’re often asked is whether we can recommend an antigen provider. The answer is, of course we can. With over a hundred members, the Pivotal Scientific Alliance includes many companies with a wealth of expertise in antigen generation. Yet for us to direct a client to a manufacturer best able to meet their … Read more
The number of cases of dementia is expected to rapidly rise due to our global ageing population. Dementia is a distressing condition characterised by gradual cognitive decline. Affecting mostly elderly patients, Alzheimer’s disease is a major cause of dementia accounting for around 70% of all cases. It has been well established that there is a … Read more
Introduction Phage display is a powerful technique discovered over thirty years ago. Since then, a variety of phages have been investigated for their utility. Most notable among these are the Ff filamentous phage family, lambda phage, T4 phage, and T7 phage. The Ff filamentous phage family is often preferred for its lysogenic life cycle. Lambda, … Read more
NEWBURYPORT, MA – November 26, 2018 – Cell Sciences, a supplier of high-quality reagents for biological research, announces an expanding line of high purity cytokines and growth factors. These products have been developed using a unique barley grain expression system to be 100% endotoxin-free by bypassing the use of animal or human serum, or bacterial … Read more
When asked which field of scientific research they specialise in, many researchers will list a major discipline such as immunology or neuroscience; a disease area such as cancer or an inflammatory disorder; or a highly specialised field such as apoptosis or hypoxia. Yet while invasive fungal infections contribute significantly to human morbidity and mortality worldwide, … Read more
It is easy to see why researchers have employed immunofluorescent readouts for decades. The method offers the advantage of superior multiplexing and easier identification of co-localised molecules. Furthermore, it also provides a dynamic range that affords visualisation of both high- and low-abundance targets within the same sample. The need to detect an ever-growing number of … Read more
Cell culture, the in vitro growth and maintenance of cells under carefully controlled conditions, is essential to scientific research. This important technique underpins the entire R&D pipeline and is used for a variety of applications. It is used during evaluation of compound potency or cytotoxicity during drug development, large-scale manufacture of biologics, and comparison of … Read more
While numerous antibodies have been developed against research targets of human, and mouse origin, significantly fewer are to fish antigens. Yet the importance of being able to detect fish antigens should not be under-estimated as antibodies which target fish antigens have many important applications within the field of aquaculture. For example, zebrafish have increasingly been … Read more
While a typical antibody molecule has two identical antigen-binding sites, bispecific antibodies (bsAbs) recognise two different epitopes. This makes them suitable for a variety of applications from the recruitment of T cells to tumours. They can also be used to simultaneously block two different signalling pathways and deliver therapeutic agents to targeted sites. The most … Read more
Antibodies continue to be a big business. The global market for research reagents reached $2.8 billion in 2017 and the primary research antibodies global market is currently worth $945 million. However, within the scientific community there have been growing concerns regarding the quality of some commercially available antibodies. For instance, problems reproducing key experiments have … Read more