Greetings! Welcome to the Alces Bioworks, Inc. blog.
This being the company’s first post, it seems appropriate to address an obvious question. Why was Alces Bioworks founded?
We, the founders of this company, are scientists. We have lived through the pain of waiting months for custom antibodies against protein targets we wanted to detect in simple assays such as ELISAs and western blots. Like you, we had bosses and funders who were waiting, not always patiently, for impactful results.
Antibodies are critical affinity reagents essential to life sciences research, as well as the development and manufacturing of biologics. However, the technology used to create monoclonal antibodies is now 50 years old. (It was published on August 1, 1975.) Although the approach has been tremendously successful, it is not perfect. In 2024, a team tested 614 commercial antibodies and reported that more than half did not work as advertised. The costs of bad antibodies have been estimated to exceed $1 billion each year.
While efforts are underway to improve the quality and reliability of antibodies, there are more than 6 million antibodies sold commercially. You could try your luck at the antibody reagent roulette. You had almost no choice… until now. This is what Alces Bioworks is all about: providing new, designed affinity reagents that are easily produced in a few weeks.
In the coming days and weeks, we will post more about this revolution in affinity reagents.
FAQs
Designed affinity reagents are engineered binding proteins created using modern design technologies rather than traditional hybridoma-based monoclonal antibody production. Unlike conventional antibodies developed using 50-year-old methods, designed affinity reagents can be produced in weeks, offer improved specificity, and reduce the risk of batch-to-batch variability. They are optimized for applications such as ELISA, western blot, and biologics development.
KD= koff/ kon
Where koff is the dissociation rate constant, and kon is the association rate constant. Lower KD values (nM range) indicate stronger binding interactions. Alces Bioworks uses Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) and Biolayer Interferometry (BLI) to measure these kinetic parameters in real time.
Studies have shown that more than half of the tested commercial antibodies do not perform as advertised. Issues such as poor specificity, cross-reactivity, and inconsistent reproducibility contribute to unreliable experimental results. With over 6 million antibodies sold commercially, quality control varies widely, leading to significant financial losses in life sciences research and biologics manufacturing.
Traditional custom monoclonal antibody development can take several months due to animal immunization and screening processes. In contrast, designed affinity reagents can be developed and produced within a few weeks, accelerating research timelines and reducing delays for scientists, biotech companies, and research institutions.