My lab does tons and tons of western blots, and I gotta give a shout out to Cell Signaling for their primary antibodies. Very few of them actually suck, and the ones that do, nobody else makes good ones either. We study the PI3K/mTOR pathway (among other things) so if you need an any advice on good ones let me know. Their secondaries are very good too, but pity they don't make many species, just anti-rabbit and anti-mouse. One Christmas Cell Signaling ran an awesome promotion something like $25 iTunes gift card for $200 of product, or something like that....the whole lab got $50 gift cards that year, since we stocked up on things we knew we would use.
Recently I've been trying some Epitomics monoclonals, and the 2 i've found have been hits: TSC2 and phospho-ATM (however this only works for human, as the datasheet indicates).
We also buy gels from BioRad, and don't have any complaints. In general they seem pretty reliable, and our rep will give us free ones if we occasionally have problems.
Dharmacon is my fave source of siRNA - the SMARTpools are what I normally get. Usually I see no increase in efficiency beyond 10nM making them last a pretty long time.
@Nikkilina, do we get publishable quality data with SNAPid? How much does it cost?
@Angela, Cell Signaling antibodies are awesome. However, recently our lab had problem with few antibodies, Those which used to work with 1:2000 dilution before are not working with 1:500 dilution now. May be problem with few lots. One more suggestion is that talk to a representative for your area and send him the list of antibodies you are planning to order in the future. They will send you a quote and you can get discounts from 5-20%. Ignore this if you are already getting one.
I never though about it, but I guess i just cannot chose a single product as favorite one. Should I go with Flowcytometer or a McCoy media bottle? Oh my gosh, I just realized that I am in love with every single thing in my lab.
For peeps using antibodies, you might check out Biolegend. They carry a lot of the same clones as BD Biosciences at about 1/2 the price--and that's before any discounts, which if your dept. or institution orders regularly you can often get. Generally the quality is very good, comparable to BD, and you can usually get free test samples. From what colleagues have said, they're an excellent resource if you're doing flow cytometry, because they have so many antibodies in so many different colors, plus they have experienced folks on staff that can help you set up multi (e.g. 14)-color flow setups. The only downside is that currently most of their products are for immunology (e.g. cell surface markers, cytokines), but they're expending their range of cell signaling antibodies.
I generally had good experiences with cell signaling technology, but was HIGHLY displeased with my IkappaB zeta antibody from them. Their tech support guy was very good, but the product itself sucks. But then, I can't blame them ALL that much, since it doesn't appear anyone else has a non shite one either.
Just checked biolegend and epitomics, they don't have it.
I love our R&D biosystems ELISAs. And when I could use it, the nanodrop (lab down the hall has one, I covet it greatly but they are hellaexpensive).
The SNAPid works great. Once you adjust your antibody concentrations to meet the technology, the bands are perfect. I've found I even get a little higher sensitivity than I do with traditional methods.
New lab has SnapID, and I ran through a western with the other postdoc yesterday. I am amazed. In awe. Maybe in love. A Western in 30 minutes instead of taking all friggin' day? Hellz yes!!! Plus it doesn't take up that much space on the bench. Evidently the major cost for the system is the cassettes, which according to the company you're not supposed to reuse, but it seems everyone does--our lab reuses them two or three times (washing w/ di water at the end), others supposedly reuse them closer to 5-10 times.
@BiochemBelle I reuse them 5-10 times too. I just soak them overnight in DI water after I use them. I've never had any problems doing it that way. It's super amazing!
I don't use any of that fancy biomed stuff, and I've never used a pipette in my life. But. I get to use reallllllllly expensive military style nightvision goggles in my research.
Well, now you've gone and upped the ante, Jason. I mean, really, how are we supposed to top military grad nightvision goggles? And don't even try to pretend that you don't use them for covert tag.
I *wish* we could play tag, but it would be horribly unfair. We only have one set!
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