CiteAb Awards 2026 Presentations: Celebrating Excellence at AACR
5
Min Read
In this blog:
- Learn about the CiteAb Awards
- See the Awards Presentations from 2026
- Sign up to our newsletter to hear when the Awards launch next year!
AACR 2026 in San Diego was a fantastic few days. With key themes including the use of foundation models and agentic AI in cancer research, antibody drug conjugates and advances in cellular therapies, amongst a lot more, there was much to dig into.
It also gave the CiteAb team the opportunity to meet with partners, make new connections, and to present this year’s CiteAb Awards in person.
CiteAb Awards Overview
The CiteAb Awards celebrate the very best in the research reagent sector, an often under-recognised area.
This year, we recognised 19 outstanding companies and individuals across a range of categories, spanning innovative research products, images and individuals, and significant growth in citation share across key product types and research areas.
We received a strong field of nominations, and our independent judging panels worked hard to evaluate entries across our nomination-based categories.
For our data-driven awards, we used the CiteAb database to identify companies demonstrating significant growth and impact through reagent citation counts – covering antibodies, instruments, plasmids, kits and proteins.
Day-by-Day Award Presentations at AACR
We kicked off the conference on Sunday afternoon, meeting with five CiteAb Award winners.
Vector Labs: opened the day, with the title of Highly Commended in the Innovation Award, for their Glysite Explorer in situ PLA Glycan Detection Kit.
Combining a curated lectin panel with Navinci’s in situ Proximity Ligation Assay (isPLA) technology, it delivers spatially resolved glycosylation detection using a familiar immunostaining-style workflow – a challenging area of study for researchers.
Abcam followed with an impressive haul of achievements. Will Howat, VP of Validation and Technical Quality, was named the recipient of the Significant Individual Impact Award for 2026, in recognition of his work establishing rigorous standards for antibody validation and characterisation – making a real difference to scientists who rely on research antibodies.
Abcam also took home the IHC Supplier of the Year in Neuroscience Award, recognising their efforts in advancing neuroscience research through IHC antibodies, and were named Highly Commended in the Phospho Antibody Supplier of the Year Award.
Thermo Fisher Scientific: Were awarded the Mass Spectrometer Supplier of the Year for their leading citation counts in scientific publications for mass spectrometers.
They were also Highly Commended in the IHC Supplier of the Year in Neuroscience Award.
R&D Systems, a Bio-Techne brand: Were recognised as Highly Commended in the Growth Factor Supplier of the Year Award, which was determined by their citation count for growth factor products.
ELK Biotechnology were named winners in the ELISA Kit Supplier to Watch category. This award recognised their growing citation footprint in the ELISA kit space, underpinning a significant volume of important biomedical research.
Day 2, Monday
Monday brought another set award presentations, with six more companies recognised for their outstanding contributions to the life science research community.
MilliporeSigma were named winners of the Innovation Award for their PURedit® Cas9 Flexible/Precision Cytosine Base Editor kit.
This off-the-shelf recombinant protein cytosine base editor enables flexible, transient cytosine base editing without double-strand breaks – supporting safer gene editing and a variety of powerful applications in genetics research.
AlphaThera were Highly Commended in the Researchers’ Choice Award – one of our most contested categories, where we ask scientists to vote for the suppliers who have gone above and beyond to support their research in the past year.
Cell Signaling Technology were named the Phospho Antibody Supplier of the Year. This award recognised their work supporting researchers with highly cited antibodies against phosphorylated targets. They were among the first to develop and commercialise post-translational modification-specific antibodies – challenging reagents to develop, yet essential for researchers.
BPS Bioscience were named Protein Supplier to Watch in Cancer Research. This award celebrates the supplier supporting cancer research through strong growth in protein reagent use in the scientific literature, calculated by percentage increase in citation counts.
PeproTech, part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, were named winners of the Growth Factor Supplier of the Year Award. This win highlights PeproTech’s work to provide growth factors that are widely trusted and cited by researchers.
Proteintech: Took home the Researchers’ Choice title, voted for by scientists themselves, for a second year in a row.
Nominators said of the company: “They’re responsive, genuinely in touch with the times, and always on the pulse. Really impressed.” and “We have also enjoyed their educational content, the courses and the webinars from experts in the field”.
They were also named Highly Commended in the ELISA Kit Supplier to Watch Award, determined by % citation increase.
Day 3, Tuesday
For our final day at AACR, we wrapped up the 2026 CiteAb Awards presentations with three more awards meetings.
OriGene were named Highly Commended in the Plasmid Supplier of the Year category. With a strong focus on genomic and proteomic research, this recognition reflects their impressive citation presence for plasmids – essential tools across these fields.
ACROBiosystems were Highly Commended in the Protein Supplier to Watch in Cancer Research Award, demonstrating their support of scientists by providing highly cited proteins supporting cancer research.
Miltenyi Biotec received the Highly Commended title in the Image of the Year Award for a striking image showing a whole intact mouse brain, cleared using the MACS Deep Clearing Kit and imaged with the UltraMicroscope Blaze – a powerful demonstration of multiplex immunostaining and imaging technology.
Other 2026 Winners
Congratulations are also in order to the following awardees not included above who were recognised as part of this year’s CiteAb Awards:
ZEISS: Image of the Year Award
Joe McKellar: Image of the Year Award
SCIEX: Highly commended in the Mass Spectrometer Supplier of the Year Award
Cytek: Highly commended in the Flow Cytometer to Watch Award
Beckman Coulter: Winners in the Flow Cytometer to Watch Award
Addgene: Winners of the Plasmid Supplier of the Year Award
You can read more about all of our winners on the CiteAb Awards site here.
Thank You to Our Community
A huge thank you to everyone who submitted nominations, shared feedback, or supported the CiteAb Awards in 2026. Our awards wouldn’t be possible without our independent judging panels and all those who take the time to nominate. It is a genuine pleasure to celebrate such impressive achievement in the sector.
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