A new Hemoglobin (Hgb) High Sensitivity kit has just been released to allow for the detection of Hgb in low amount of samples. Researchers working on inflammation, kidney injury or oxidative stress may have an interest in this kit, especially when working with small animal models. Hemoglobin variations in levels are also associated with a variety of conditions ranging from anemia (low Hgb), erythrocytosis (high Hgb), thalassemias (aberrant chain synthesis), and sickling disorders (abnormal complex shape).

When doing WBs, IFs or IHCs, we normally pay a lot of attention to the primary antibody that should be chosen. We look at the datasheet, we check that the primary antibody has been validated for the species and application of our interest, we check if it has been used in publications, we look at the pictures in the datasheet… but sometimes we forget about the secondary.

Here are some tips to help you choose the best secondary. Because a good choice of a secondary antibody can be as important as choosing the right primary! Thanks to Camilo Moncada, Ph.D., from Rockland Inc, for his support!

Whether your protein is simple to produce, or complex and requires more development, in any case, outsourcing your protein expression, purification and production is a very viable option for your projects.

Saving time, resources and money is nearly always a top priority, so calling on outsourcing services to allow you to re-allocate your staff and fund savings makes sense. Particularly given that all the tedious and hard work in optimizing ideal protein expression and purification processes will have already been done for you!

One of the challenges in R&D is to find robust technologies to develop diagnostic tests. Notably, it could be within a context of asymptomatic infections for which reliable detection of positive specimens is crucial.

Jordi Landiera et al. have just published an article in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (doi.org/10.1128/JCM.00565-18) using a combination of PCR and immunoassays to reveal the benefit of an HRP2-based ultrasensitive rapid diagnostic test that was developed to improve the detection of Plasmodium falciparum low density infections.