At Abcam, our mission is to keep your research moving forward. For that, you need reagents you can trust to deliver reliable, accurate results. Our leading quality management system works from the very beginning of product development to after product launch to ensure the high standards of antibody quality you expect from us.

Target product profile

We conform to the principle of Design Control and start by setting out a thorough profile of the antibody we want to develop, based on the needs of the scientific community for that target. At this stage, we begin to set out our stringent criteria for what would make this a high-quality reagent worthy of adding to our catalog. Before reagent development begins, we establish parameters for key metrics like sensitivity and specificity, as well as positive and negative control materials, and agree what excellent looks like. If at any point in the development process a reagent doesn’t meet these parameters, we won’t add it to our portfolio.

Reagent development

First, following rabbit immunization, we screen a number of potential clones, eliminating those that don’t bind to the target of interest. The reduced number that make it through this screening stage undergo recombinant conversion.

Recombinant conversion takes the antibody’s light and heavy chains out of their biological system—a hybridoma or cell line—and expresses them into a DNA vector system. Recombinant manufacture overcomes many of the problems that polyclonal and traditional monoclonal antibodies have, like low reproducibility and genetic drift. We know that every batch of antibody we produce has the same genetic material, giving consistent performance between batches.

Application screening

Antibody validation needs to be application-specific to be effective. We screen the remaining clones following recombinant conversion in applications early in our processes to ensure the highest quality antibody is produced. We validate in up to 10 applications—including western blot, ICC, IHC, ELISA, IP, ChIP, flow cytometry, peptide array and dot blot— tailoring the applications we use based on the target product profile. We use our application screening to whittle down the group of clones to just one that will undergo final quality control.

"Of course, I use Abcam antibodies. They're always high quality."

Dr J. Paul Robinson, Distinguished Professor of Flow Cytometry at Purdue University

Biophysical characterization

Biophysical quality control(QC) confirms antibody identity at the molecular level, ensuring the very highest batch-to-batch consistency.

We use Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) to measure sequence identity and sequence integrity, and high-performance liquid chromatography  (HPLC) to measure aggregation status and purity with stringent acceptability standards. We accept nothing less than the highest possible quality.

"We love our products and we we want them to be the best they possibly can be. And knowing what we delivering is the highest possible product quality, that's the driver for me as to why this is important, and why it drives me to come in every day and continue to push and try to do more. "

Will Howat, Vice President of Validation and Technical Quality at Abcam

Final QC

At this point, we undertake more substantial application testing to really put the antibody through its paces. Rather than just finding out if a clone works, this is where we find out how the clone works best. We find optimal concentration, fixation and antigen retrieval conditions to equip you with tools for success. We also use positive and negative cell lines, as well as knock-out cell lines, to give you ultimate confidence in your antibody’s quality.

We only add a recombinant antibody to our catalog if it passes all these tests.

“What’s great is that Abcam has many recombinant antibodies validated by knockout, which gives a lot of confidence in the results. We keep seeing the same results across repeated experiments with the same antibodies, which gives us confidence that what we're seeing is biologically real.”

Graham Heieis, Postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University Medical Center

Enhanced validation

As part of our commitment to raising quality standards, we’ve introduced our enhanced validation initiative. Our enhanced validation program helps to further de-risk the antibody selection process by giving you comprehensive data on extensive specificity and sensitivity testing on up to 600 individual relevant disease cases. We design bespoke assays, demonstrating the performance of our antibodies in settings as close to your lab as possible.

Antibody quality matters

Just like you, we take pride in our work. By using extensive application testing, knock-out validation and our groundbreaking biophysical QC, we test our antibodies relentlessly to ensure that only the very best reagents make it into our catalog and your lab. Get results you can trust and keep your research moving forward.