Mathias UhlénReproducibility problems in life-science experiments often trace back to poor-quality materials, such as misidentified genetic sequences, contaminated cell lines, and inconsistent antibodies. Today (September 5), the International Working Group for Antibody Validation presented its proposal in Nature Methods for how reagent suppliers can ensure the reliability of antibodies.
These approaches to validation include genetic (such as RNAi) or orthogonal (such as proteomics) assays, using independent antibodies with the same target, tagging proteins, and immunocapture followed by mass spectrometry.
The Scientist spoke with Mathias Uhlén, a microbiologist at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the lead author of the Working Group’s proposal. The Working Group was funded by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
The Scientist: Can you describe the extent of the problem with antibodies?
Uhlén: As you have maybe seen in a lot of different editorials in different journals there is a lot of questioning of the quality of some of the antibodies used by scientists. There are more than 2 million antibodies available for human proteins, but a lot of reports have ...
