Welcome to the Abcam blog

Last week I visited the Abcam lab to find out some more details on how we characterize our antibodies. I spoke to Simon, who should know a fair bit about IHC in particular, as he's edited a book on the subject..

"For IHC, we've been licensed by the Human Tissue Authority to use both frozen and formalin fixed paraffin embedded human tissues. We generate our own tissue slides, for reasons of quality, since this is the only way in which we can ensure that the tissues have been optimally fixed and processed.

We then use a VisionBiosystem's Bond staining platform, which automates both the antigen retrieval and IHC staining operations, utilizing a HRP compact polymer / DAB chromogen system in order to give superior IHC staining in the shortest possible time. The slides are then counterstained in haematoxylin, coverslipped and analyzed using light microscopy. Both positive and negative data are recorded in the form of high resolution images and added to Abcam's product datasheets."

Simon's very proud of the high-quality IHC and IF images we're adding to our datasheets, but if you fancy a challenge, why not submit your own images in an Abreview?