YCharOS forms key industry advisory committee and releases first open data

YCharOS Inc., an open science company with the mission of characterizing commercially available antibody reagents for all human proteins, is pleased to announce the publication of its first characterization data and formation of its Industry Advisory Committee (IAC).

YCharOS has industrialized an antibody characterization process based on a knockout cell methodology developed at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital), in the laboratory of Peter McPherson, a Distinguished James McGill Professor.

The role of the IAC is to support YCharOS in realizing its purpose to enable users of antibodies, grant funders and the broader scientific community to better evaluate commercially available antibody reagents and associated knockout cell lines. The IAC will help guide the YCharOS team on their mission to become the world’s premier source for independent, open-source antibody characterization data. The IAC members include antibody and cell line providers: Abcam, Bio-Techne, GeneTex, Horizon Discovery (a PerkinElmer Company), Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI), Proteintech, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. These members represent 26 per cent of all antibodies listed in The Antibody Registry and 39 per cent of all antibody citations in research published in 2020 according to CiteAb.

Inconsistent antibody performance is a significant challenge for researchers and sits at the heart of the reproducibility crisis observed in biomedical research. To address this unmet need, YCharOS is performing head-to-head comparisons of commercially available antibodies to the same target protein and publishing the results in a transparent and open access way.

The first results, covering antibodies targeting 15 proteins of relevance to neurology and pharmacology have been posted to Zenodo, the open science platform run by CERN. Antibodies have been tested for Western blot (WB), immunoprecipitation (IP) and immunofluorescence (IF) applications.

“It’s tremendously exciting to see so many leading companies partner with us to build our platform and help solve the reproducibility crisis affecting the life sciences community,” said YCharOS Board Chair, Dr. Aled Edwards. “It shows a real commitment from these organizations to bring the highest quality products to the marketplace.”

“YCharOS is excited to be sharing our scientific work without restriction on use,” said YCharOS CEO Chetan Raina. “YCharOS is poised to become the go-to resource for scientists seeking independent characterization data.”

###

Companies or researchers interested in supporting our work are encouraged to contact YCharOS.

About YCharOS Inc.

YCharOS Inc. (Antibody Characterization through Open Science) is a Canadian, public interest, open science company with the mission of characterizing commercially available antibody reagents for all human proteins. All of YCharOS’s scientific methods and results will be transparent and patent-free. The antibody characterization platform industrializes the rigorous methodology established at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University, in collaboration with the Structural Genomics Consortium. The company is wholly owned by the Agora Open Science Trust, a registered charity.

For more information, see http://www.ycharos.com.