Addgene Launches Open Access Recombinant Antibody Resource for the Scientific Research Community

Watertown, MA - Addgene, the nonprofit biorepository, now produces and distributes ready-to-use recombinant antibodies. The inaugural collection of monoclonal antibodies is part of the Neuroscience AntiBody Open Resource (NABOR), a platform that provides open access to recombinant antibodies and affinity reagents for the neuroscience community. NABOR is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative.

“One of the NIH BRAIN Initiative’s goals is to make tools, resources, and emerging technologies broadly accessible to the research community. Addgene’s new open access platform for recombinant antibodies does just that, unlocking the potential to speed up what we understand of the brain’s structure and function,” said John Ngai, Ph.D., Director, NIH BRAIN Initiative.

The initial collection consists of 27 antibodies designed and tested by James Trimmer, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Membrane Biology, University of California Davis School of Medicine. The Trimmer lab, whose research uses antibodies to understand the functions of ion channels in neurons, will conduct quality control of the NABOR affinity reagents.

Addgene will expand the ready-to-use antibody catalog to serve additional areas of research through collaborations with scientists, using the same repository model as their plasmid and viral vectors services.

“We are thrilled to share this new resource with the scientific research community,” says Melina Fan, Ph.D., cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer at Addgene. “There is a critical need for open access to affinity reagents in the global scientific research community to strengthen reproducibility efforts. In line with Addgene’s mission to provide transparent access to research materials and information, we are making related sequences, plasmids, and data for the antibodies available through Addgene.”

The antibodies in this collection target proteins studied by neuroscientists and are available to both academic and industry scientists. They are recommended for use across a variety of widely used applications in neuroscience research, such as western blots and immunohistochemistry, which are respectively used to quantify and visualize proteins to better understand their role in the brain’s functions and disorders.

“The launch of Addgene’s new antibody resource is incredibly exciting for the neuroscience community. Major field initiatives, like human brain mapping, rely on large amounts of antibody. Recombinant antibodies with open sequences will greatly enhance the reproducibility and feasibility of these efforts,” says Zhuhao Wu, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Beginning March 28, 2022, the new collection of recombinant antibodies will be available to request through the catalog on Addgene’s website. For more information, visit https://www.addgene.org/antibodies/.

About Addgene

Addgene (Watertown, MA) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to facilitating scientific discoveries by operating a biorepository for researchers. Addgene’s collection contains more than 100,000 plasmids contributed by over 5,000 research labs from around the world. Addgene also provides over 700 ready-to-use AAV and lentivirus preparations of commonly requested plasmids as a service to scientists - saving them time and providing thorough quality control. Over 1.6 million plasmids have been distributed to 108 countries by Addgene. By authenticating, storing, archiving, and distributing plasmids, antibodies, virus, and their associated data, Addgene is creating a lasting resource for research and discovery scientists around the world. For more information, visit https://www.addgene.org.

The project is supported by a NIH BRAIN Initiative grant (U24NS119916), https://braininitiative.nih.gov/. The content of this article is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.