Many cancer researchers lack access to affordable, well-characterized, and analytically validated renewable affinity reagents, a problem that could be hindering cancer biomarker discovery and validation, cancer diagnostics development, and therapeutics monitoring.
In an effort to accelerate cancer research and provide well-characterized monoclonal antibodies to the scientific community, the National Cancer Institute's (NCI's) Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research launched the Antibody Characterization Program as part of the Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer initiative. This program aims to provide antibodies and other critical resources to support protein/peptide measurement and analysis efforts, with a current focus on proteins related to human cancer.
Now, any lab that needs monoclonal antibodies for cancer-related protein targets can submit reagent target requests to NCI’s Antibody Characterization Program. If the request is accepted, the Antibody Characterization Program will generate and characterize up to three monoclonal antibodies for each protein or peptide target provided.
AACC is encouraging the laboratory medicine community to take advantage of this program as a valuable resource in the continuing effort to translate novel cancer biomarkers into clinical practice.
More information is available from the NCI’s Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research website, http://proteomics.cancer.gov.