May 13-14, 2024

Monday-Tuesday

Germantown, MD

The Bioscience Education Center

9:00am-5:00pm

1 Hour Lunch Break

This two day program is ideal for basic research and translational biology scientists who work with antibodies on a regular basis. This program which focuses on the types of artifacts associated with antibodies and introduce them to a variety of validation methods that can be implemented in research and academic laboratories.

Antibodies, and in particular monoclonal antibodies, are the single most important laboratory reagent, but are now also recognized as a main contributor to the reproducibility crisis that wastes research funding, undermines trust in scientific research, and jeopardizes scientific careers. This workshop brings to the participants’ attention the various factors that can compromise the validity of data produced with antibodies.

When it comes to verifying the integrity and identity of laboratory reagent, the burden of proof is increasingly being laid on researchers, and thus, the end-user of the reagents. The validation or authentication of antibodies can be performed with techniques and equipment readily available in many laboratories. Therefore, this workshop is recommended for anyone who relies on antibodies in their research.

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Lecture and Hands-on Interactive Training
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Team taught by active researchers
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Thumbnail drive with Lectures and Workshop material
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Space limited to 24 participants
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Registration Fee: $695

Course Director

W.Leitner Instructor

Wolfgang Leitner, PhD

Lecture topics:

  • Reagent authentication: why now? Which reagents have the most “issues”?
  • Brief intro to producing antibodies – what can go wrong?
  • Antibody batch-to-batch variations and QC
  • Problems introduced through antibody labeling
  • Problems introduced by antibody purification
  • Verifying antibody identity: suitable methods already available in most immunology labs
  • Proper maintenance of hybridoma cells, proper storage of antibodies

Hands-on Lab Exercises:

  • Antibody Validation by Immunoprecipitation/SDS-PAGE/Western Blotting
  • Antibody Validation by Flow Cytometry
  • Validating Antibody Avidity with Biosensors

Wolfgang Leitner, PhD, Course Director

Dr. Leitner is the Chief of the Innate Immunity Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH/NIAID). He received his flow cytometry training at the University of Salzburg where he obtained a MSc in biochemistry and a PhD in Immunology. He has been teaching flow cytometry for 25 years. Before joining NIAID, he worked on melanoma and lymphoma vaccines at NCI/NIH, and at WRAIR as a vaccine consultant.

December 2021

“I learned a lot through the Antibody Validation training session on Ip analysis, flow cytometry analysis, and biosensor for antibody binding etc… I would recommend this training course to anyone who wants to have a general knowledge of antibody validation methods.”  Mi S., RegenX Bio, Inc

The Bioscience Education Center

Montgomery College
20200 Observation Drive
Germantown, MD 20876