The clone is the experiment

A spatial experiment is only as good as the antibodies in its panel. Automation makes a protocol reproducible; it cannot rescue a clone that does not bind what you think it binds.

Screening clones is where the months go

Most commercially available antibodies were validated for an application that is not yours. A clone characterised on a western blot, or in flow cytometry on live cells, carries no guarantee of behaving on fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue — and less still of behaving in a multiplexed panel, where it has to hold up through repeated cycles, harsh stripping, and the fluorophore it happens to be conjugated to.

So the work falls to the lab. Order several clones per target, stain, look, discard most of them, and start again. It consumes precious samples, expensive reagents and weeks of bench time before a single biological question has been asked — and it is repeated, independently, in lab after lab, on the same handful of targets.

Specificity is the harder half. A clone that produces a convincing-looking stain is not necessarily staining the right thing, and in a multiplexed image an off-target signal does not announce itself. It becomes a cell population.

What we did about it

We took it upon ourselves to source a portfolio of well-validated clones from industry-leading IHC antibody manufacturers, and to validate them across an array of spatial assays — in our own hands, on our own instruments, under the conditions these panels actually run in.

The point is not to sell you an antibody. It is that the screening work has already been done, so the clone you start with is one that has been shown to work in the assay you are running.

Coming soon

The catalogue is not open yet. Each entry will carry its clone and antigen information, the assays it has been validated in, and the staining images behind that validation — so you can judge a reagent before you commit a sample to it, rather than after.

If there are targets you need for a spatial or immuno-oncology panel, tell us. We are choosing what to validate next, and what people ask for is how we choose.