ABOVE: Antibody labeling of C9ORF72 in the mouse brain
FROM FIGURE 5, C. LAFLAMME ET AL., ELIFE, 8:E48363, 2019
Medical science has a problem, and everyone knows it.
Imagine driving a car with a navigation system that is right just half the time, or doing math with a calculator that knows only half the multiplication table. It’s simply not rational, yet scientists are doing something similar when we use antibodies in research.
When correctly applied, antibodies are stunningly accurate. They can detect one protein out of tens of thousands in a sample.
The problem is that many, perhaps more than half of commercially available antibodies, do not target the protein their manufacturers claim they do, or they recognize the intended target but also cross-react with non-intended targets.
As we worked on our C9ORF72 paper, it became less about one gene and more about a template other labs can use to validate ...
