Virology Research Services (VRS) has been awarded a £25k MRC Proximity to Discovery Industry Engagement Fund for knowledge exchange with The Native Antigen Company (TNAC, LINK), a group focused on the expression and purification of viral antigens, and of antibodies targeting viral proteins.

Most antibodies against viral proteins, particularly for emerging viruses, tend to be well characterised in biochemical assays; however, a thorough characterisation for immunofluorescence (IF) is often lacking. This represents a concern for scientists interested in image-based applications, who may need to test and optimise several antibodies before identifying a suitable one.

Making use of the extensive virology and imaging expertise at VRS, and of the state-of-the-art high-throughput and microscopy facilities at UCL, we aim to develop high- and low- throughput protocols for different antibodies, validate their specificity across viruses of the same family, and generate informative pictures as a reference.

Given the common research interests of VRS and TNAC, we anticipate this will be the start of an exciting and fruitful collaboration. Ready to start!