Atlas Antibodies Blog

The Brain Atlas is a tool that brings the human brain mapping on a new level. It provides an overview of all the proteins expressed in the brains of three mammalian species: human, mouse and pig. It also compares the proteins in the brain to the proteins in other tissue types of the human body. Excited? Read more.

Applied biological or biomedical research aims to reach a thorough understanding of the physiology of organisms and to further development of disease therapeutics. Some scientific discoveries have narrow applicability or scope and are sometimes serendipitous or even entirely unexpected. Other have wider applicability and transferability having proved enormously useful over a wide range of domains. Among the latter are research antibodies. Read more to discover how they help progressing science.

Washing- and staining solutions, blocking agents, detection and mounting solutions. Successful immunohistochemical staining requires reliable, high-quality reagents to fixate, to wash and permeabilize the tissue. But what is the rationale behind the fact that certain buffers or storage conditions are better to use than other, or is it all just empiric?

Today we meet with Dr. Cecilia Lindskog, group leader at Uppsala University in Sweden, and the site director of the Tissue Atlas part of the Human Protein Atlas (HPA). Her research is focused on protein science, understanding the biology and functions of human proteins expressed in different organs, and the underlying mechanisms leading to cancer and other diseases. We asked her 10 questions about the past, the present, and the future of the Tissue Atlas.

We have run the exact same experiment. I found X. You found Y. Why? Have you been in this conversation with a collaborator? Have you ever obtained amazing results which contradict previous theory? Before you read on, take a moment to answer that for yourself. What was your reaction? “It is all my fault. I must have done something wrong” or “Interesting, I never thought about that before…” 

The human body is the results of trillion of cells communicating with each other. Early biologists described cells as simple membranous sacs containing fluid and a few floating particles. Today we know that cells are infinitely more complex than that. Read here about the Cell Atlas, part of the Human Protein Atlas, for insights into the spatio-temporal distribution of proteins within human cells. 

As a rule, the complex biology and spatial organization of tissues and solid tumors poses a scientific and diagnostic challenge that is not sufficiently well addressed by standard immunohistochemistry (IHC) procedures. How come this is the case? The answer is that single IHC staining provides data on only one marker at a time. So, how do you stain multiple protein in the same cell or tissue?

In this blog, we would like to tell you about that time when researchers interested in a new therapeutic target for patients with type 2 diabetes, knocked at our door asking for help, and how we used the Tissue Atlas, part of the Human Protein Atlas project, to answer their questions. But let’s start from the beginning.

Today we meet with Dr. Kristian Moller, Principal Scientist at Altas Antibodies, to ask him 10 questions about past, present, and future of multiplex immunohistochemistry.

Can you make use of an antibody that targets a human protein in another model organism? Under the right conditions, the answer is yes!