We’ve been debating whether to order custom antibodies for a project that needs super high specificity. In my last lab, we went for very targeted ones, but they ended up being too narrow — they worked great for one assay but weren’t flexible enough for anything else. Now I’m in a group that wants reagents with broader applications, but I’m worried we’ll lose sensitivity if we go too general. How do you all find the sweet spot without wasting time and budget?
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Custom antibodies: how to balance specificity and versatility
Custom antibodies: how to balance specificity and versatility
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I’ve noticed teams often shift their antibody strategy depending on whether they’re in an exploratory phase or doing very specific validation work. It feels like versatility is great when you’re still mapping things out, while specificity really shines in the later stages. Either way, most groups I know keep a mix on hand, so they can pivot depending on what the data throws at them.
I’ve run into that exact trade-off. For one project we needed antibodies that could pick up only one protein isoform, and it worked beautifully… until we realized we couldn’t reuse them in other studies. Another time we went broader, and while it was convenient, background noise was a pain. What helped us was checking suppliers that offer both off-the-shelf and customizable solutions. https://gentaur.co.uk/ has been useful for comparing options — sometimes starting with a catalogue antibody and tweaking from there saves headaches. I’d say think about future projects too, not just the immediate experiment.