November 2013: We go to the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego for the first time as a vendor. The web site for the meeting is here. We make numerous scientific and business contacts and also sell some of our immunocytochemical images for the first time.
October 2013: We release yet more new products- novel antibodies to cFos, Aurora A and ALDH1L1. The cFos protein is an important transcriptional regulator, and is heavily upregulated when cells respond to a variety of stimuli- our novel antibodies sensitively detects cFos protein in the nuclei of responding cells and are particularly useful in studies of the nervous system, as the nuclei of activated neurons stain strongly, while those of quiescent cells show very little staining. We have generate a mouse monoclonal antibody MCA-2H2 and also an affinity purified rabbit polyclonal antibody RPCA-c-Fos-AP. Both can be used to monitor cell activation both in vitro and in sectioned material. Aurora A is a serine/threonine protein kinase important in the regulation of cell division, and we have two new monoclonals to this protein, MCA-5A12 and MCA-3H1. ALDH1L1 is an aldehyde dehydrogenase family enzyme heavily expressed in the astrocytic cytoplasm, providing an alternative to GFAP as an astrocyte marker. It stains cytoplasmic processes rather than the central cytoskeleton as since with GFAP, so gives a slightly different view. Our new antibodies are MCA-4A12 and MCA-2E7, which have distinct epitopes an the ALDH1L1 protein. Finally we have developed more data on the exact epitopes of our two MAP2 mouse monoclonals MCA-4H5 and MCA-5H11 and also our TDP43 mouse monoclonal MCA-3H8. We now know that both MAP2 antibodies bind to the so called “projection domain” of MAP2, found in MAP2A and MAP2B but not MAP2C and that our TDP43 antibody binds a site in the N-terminal 150 amino acids of this protein. As usual all our antibodies detect the protein immunogen both on western blots and immunocytochemically. In other news one of our pictures showing cells from a mature rat brain stained with mouse monoclonal antibody MCA-DA2 (green) and rabbit polyclonal antibody RPCA-a-Int was selected for Image of the Day”, by The Scientist magazine for October 23, 2013. Finally, you can now subscribe to our RSS feed.
June 2013: We release yet more new products. Firstly, we now have a panel of antibodies to ALDH1L1, one of the a family of aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes. This particular protein is interesting as it is believed to be a specific marker of astroctyes in the central nervous system. We have developed a rabbit polyclonal antibody to this protein, RPCA-ALDH1L1, and we will release excellent chicken polyclonal and mouse monoclonal antibodies to the same protein next month. These antibodies all recognize astrocytes in sections and astrocytes and other non neuronal cells in tissue culture specifically, and provide complementary imaging of the astrocytlc perikarya and distal processes to that seen with our collection of GFAP antibodies, which primarily bind to the core of astrocytic processes. We also introduce two other mouse monoclonal antibodies which can be used to identify non-neuronal cells in the CNS, this time binding to the abundant enzyme Aldolase C, specifically antibodies MCA-4A9 and MCA-1A1. We have made available chicken and rabbit antibodies to visinin like protein 1 (VSNL1), a major low molecular weight calcium binding protein of neurons recently shown to be a potential biomarker of CNS injury. These antibodies, RPCA-VSNL1 and CPCA-VSNL1, complement our pair of already released mouse monoclonal antibodies to this protein. We also introduce a new chicken antibody to α-synuclein, CPCA-SNCA. We have now licensed and are manufacturing an excellent mouse monoclonal antibody to β-amyloid, the major component of the senile plaques of Alzheimer’s disease, namely MCA-AB9. Finally we and our various collaborators continue to publish peer reviewed research reports made using our antibodies and in particular our pNF-H ELISA kit. For examples see here, here and here.
March 2013: Our CEO and founder, Dr. Gerry Shaw, is featured in the Florida High Tech magazine, which focuses on companies in the Florida High Tech Corridor an area including Gainesville, Tampa and Orlando, and the Universities of Florida, South Florida and Central Florida. A short video clip from the interview is on Youtube and can be vewed here. In other news, Dr. Shaw also retired from the University of Florida after 27 years as a Professor there. The major reason for doing this is so that he can concentrate on running, EnCor, his private company but also, to quote him directly “27 years of anything is probably enough”. Also, he can get something interesting done quickly in his company but would have to wait months to get the same thing done in the state university system due to onerous and basically silly bureaucratic nonsenses. We also release a new antibodies to the microtubule associated protein tau. Our mouse monoclonal is MCA-2E9 and our chicken polyclonal antibody is CPCA-Tau. MAP-tau is a major protein of neurons where it associates with and may regulate the interactions of microtubules. Tau is also a major component of the aberrant neurofibrillary tangles of Alzheimer’s disease, and some other neurological diseases.
February 2013: We release five new polyclonal antibodies, which are rabbit and chicken antibodies specific for Lamin A/C (RPCA-LaminAC and CPCA-LaminAC), rabbit antibody to Vimentin (RPCA-Vim), chicken antibody to Heat Shock Protein 27 (HSP27, CPCA-HSP27) and an improved version of our rabbit antibody to GAPDH (RPCA-GAPDH). Lamin A/C and GAPDH are abundant proteins found in most cell types which are useful markers of cytoplasm (GAPDH) and the nuclear lamina (Lamin A/C). GAPDH also changes in distribution when cells become apoptotic and interacts with a wide variety of other proteins. Vimentin is a developmentally regulated marker in the nervous system and can also be used to identify fibroblastic and microglial cells. HSP27 is an abundant cytoplasmic protein which functions as a chaperone.
