5th International Antibody Validation Meeting Wrap-up
10
Min Read
In this blog:
- Learn more about the Antibody Validation Meeting event origins
- Discover which key themes emerged
- We say a big thank you to everyone involved!
Thank you to everyone who joined us at the 5th International Antibody Validation Meeting! Today, we take a moment to thank those instrumental in making the event such a success and reflect on the key themes and learnings.
“It was fantastic to welcome the antibody community from all over the world to Bath this September for the 5th International Antibody Validation Meeting.This meeting was the biggest yet, with more poster presenters, speakers and delegates than ever – meaning we only just fit into dinner!
Over the 3 days, there was plenty of lively discussion and insightful presentations with a focus on tackling the challenges of antibody validation as well as celebrating the impact of good antibodies on reproducible science.
It was our pleasure to organise this meeting with the University of Bath and AstraZeneca, and we loved seeing those from academia, pharma/biotech, and supplier companies exchanging ideas face-to-face!”
- Dr Andrew Chalmers, CiteAb CEO and Scientific Co-organiser of the Antibody Validation Meeting
Event Background
The International Antibody Validation Meeting has grown out of a simple but pressing problem – antibody use in research experiments. There have been numerous studies on the economic and scientific impact of antibodies that aren’t fit for purpose, finding that 20-30% of protein studies use ineffective antibodies. [1]
Antibody validation – testing antibodies for specificity and selectivity across applications – influences the success of experiments and ultimately underpins the reproducibility of science.
To bring the community together to discuss this topic, the International Antibody Validation Meeting was created – originally run by St John’s with support from CiteAb.
CiteAb was started at the University of Bath over ten years ago by a researcher struggling to find the right antibody for his experiments; we have since grown into a global antibody and reagent search engine, as well as a trusted reagent data provider for suppliers and biopharma – putting us right at the heart of this community.
Following the first meeting and given our sustained interest in this topic, CiteAb took on the organisation of the subsequent four meetings in collaboration with the University of Bath and AstraZeneca.
This year marked the meeting’s fifth edition. We welcomed 25 speakers from across the globe and 125 delegates. Attendees came from leading academic institutions, innovative biotechs, major pharmaceutical companies, and supplier organisations.
Today, we share some of the key event highlights and themes that emerged if you weren’t able to make the event, or if you’re reflecting on the past few days in Bath.
Event Highlights
Over the course of the three days, a number of themes emerged. Alongside exciting new technologies and case studies, there was a strong sense of both how far the field has come and how much work remains.
One strong thread throughout the meeting was multiplexing approaches, building on conversations from previous editions of the meeting.
Spatial Biology + New multiplexing technologies
The conference opened with Ulf Landegren, who described the PEA assay and how using two antibodies helps in reducing cross-reactivity. He went on to expand into multiplexing.
From there, discussions turned to new platforms such as Bio-Techne’s COMET technology, which was brought to life by Zoe Butti from the New York Genome Center, who described how her group is applying COMET to ALS research.
Roberto Polakiewicz of Cell Signaling Technology introduced yet another exciting approach: SignalStar multiplex IHC, which uses oligo-based cycling to achieve detection of multiple targets. Thermo Fisher Scientific also spoke on their new primary antibody conjugates which enable high multiplexing.
Together, these talks – and others – painted a picture of the growing toolkit available for spatial biology, while also highlighting the importance of antibodies for these technologies and the remaining challenges.
AI – all hype in antibody design?
Artificial intelligence was another area that provoked discussion. With AI tools entering the mainstream, it was perhaps inevitable that antibody design would be examined through this lens.
Jonathan Schmid-Burgk explored AI-designed binders, while Andrew Buchanan shared thoughts on how AI could act as a co-pilot in antibody engineering. Andrew Bradbury then introduced the “AIntibody challenge”, and Proteintech their new AbleAI tool. Across the talks, there was clear potential of AI for antibody development and research, as well as awareness of the need for robust datasets, thorough validation, and testing.
Robust datasets are a hallmark of CiteAb’s interest in AI, and part of the reason we began licensing our data to pharma/biotech companies through the CiteAb Unlimited service.
Open sharing and education
A broader but equally important theme that came up was the need to openly share both successes and failures in validation, and to equip scientists with the appropriate training on the topic.
Stephen Schuener and Johan Duchêne provided examples of how poor-quality antibodies have derailed research, as well as the difficulties of correcting the scientific record. Building on this, Elisia Clark of the Michael J. Fox Foundation shared how the organisation has partnered with journals to publish replication studies – showcasing solutions in action.
Andrea Radtke from Leica Microsystems spoke about her work with the IBEX imaging community, and how they have embraced open sharing of data and protocols through GitHub, Zenodo, and a community website. Adding to the theme of education, Jim Trimmer from NeuroMab and Carl Laflamme from the YCharOS initiative discussed efforts to share data, as well as YCharOS’ plans to develop an antibody validation training course in 2026.
These talks collectively highlighted how transparency and education are essential steps in the field.
Remaining challenges
Finally, while the meeting showcased enormous progress, it was clear that many challenges remain. Across talks and discussions, recurring difficulties were highlighted in areas such as generating PTM antibodies, the adoption of animal-free antibodies, and antibodies for use in IHC.
This summary highlights just a fraction of the fantastic talks given. Thank you to all our great speakers for travelling to Bath and sharing insights.
We will be releasing talks on the Antibody Validation meeting website as they become available – so do look out for an announcement on this across our social channels and check back on the website!
Poster session
We also hosted over 20 posters, with presenters addressing topics ranging from specific validation initiatives and platforms, the challenges of validation for certain targets and applications, and new technologies in the space.
Here were some of the titles:
- Harvinder Virk, University of Leicester and Only Good Antibodies ‘The Only Good Antibodies community: better antibodies, better science, better patient outcomes’
- Karen Elliott Thompson, DSHB, ‘The Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank: Sharing Monoclonal Antibodies Through Open Science’
- Travis Riedel, Institute for Protein Innovation, ‘A Case for Validated Glypican Monoclonal Antibodies’
We hosted a slightly longer poster session this year, enabling plenty of time to delve into discussions on the interesting topics brought to the table!
The meeting dinner
On Wednesday evening, we gathered for the meeting dinner at the DoubleTree Hilton, Bath. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect and continue discussions in a relaxed space.
A thank you to those involved
Finally, we want to reiterate our thanks to all those involved in the event. This meeting would not be possible without the support of the University of Bath and AstraZeneca.
Essential for the smooth running of the event, we are indebted to our chairs for stepping up to keep everyone to time and fostering great discussion! They were:
- Alejandra Solache, Abcam, UK
- Katarzyna Kmiecik, Alchemab Therapeutics, UK
- Asel Sartbaeva, EnsiliTech, UK
- Elena Ivanova, Regeneron, UK
- Peter McPherson, McGill University, Canada
- Carly Dix, AstraZeneca, UK
- Andy Chalmers, CiteAb, UK
Our speakers were:
- Andrew Buchanan, Stealth mode biotech, UK
- Zoe Butti, New York Genome Center, US
- Andrew Bradbury, Specifica, an IQVIA business, US
- Elisia Clark, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, US
- Carly Dix, AstraZeneca, UK
- Johan Duchêne, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, Germany
- Myriam Duckely, Novartis, Switzerland
- Björn Forsström, Olink Proteomics, Sweden
- Will Howat, Abcam, UK
- Elena Ivanova, Regeneron, US
- Carl Laflamme, Neuro-SGC, YCharOS initiative, Canada
- Ulf Landegren, Uppsala University, Sweden
- Thierry Le Bihan, Rapid Novor, Canada
- Ruth McAdam, GSK, UK
- Leticia Montoya, Thermo Fisher Scientific, US
- Deborah Moshinsky, Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI), US
- Roberto Polakiewicz, Cell Signaling Technology, US
- Andrea Radtke, Leica Microsystems, US
- Vanessa Restrepo Schild, Bio-Techne, UK
- Jonathan Schmid-Burgk, University of Bonn, Germany
- Stefan Schuechner, Medical University of Vienna, Max Perutz Labs, Austria
- Amy Turner, Proteintech, UK
- Jim Trimmer, University of California, Davis, US
- Michael Weiner, Precision BioTools,US
- Libby Wiseman, AstraZeneca, UK
Without our sponsors, this meeting would not be possible. We are hugely grateful for their support and active participation in discussions and data sharing.
Having vendors involved in these conversations is absolutely essential for progress across the field.
Abcam
Atlas Antibodies
AstraZeneca
R&D Systems, Bio-Techne
CDI Labs
Cell Signaling Technology
DIANA Biotechnologies
DSHB
EnsiliTech
GeneTex
HUABIO
https://www.huabio.com/pages/quality-standards
InVivo Biotech Services GmbH
Precision BioTools
Proteintech Group
Sanyou Bio
https://crs.sanyoubio.com/antibody
Thermo Fisher Scientific
VectorBuilder
And of course, thank you to all the delegates who joined the meeting this year and engaged in the discussion!
Looking ahead
We hope delegates leave with fresh ideas, stronger connections, and renewed energy for improving antibody validation.
We are looking forward to welcoming even more delegates to the 6th International Antibody Validation Meeting in September 2027 to continue these important conversations and reflect on progress made.
Sign up to the CiteAb mailing list to be notified when booking for this event opens, and to stay up to date with our search engine and data news.
References:
1- Ayoubi, R. et al. (2023). Scaling of an antibody validation procedure enables quantification of antibody performance in major research applications. eLife, [online] 12. doi:https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.91645.
