Antibody Applications
CellRaft Technology: Forward Screening for Antibody Discovery
CellRaft Technology flips the traditional funnel. Instead of screening blind, it allows you to:
- Detect antibody secretion and specificity directly on-array
- Screen tens of thousands of individual cells in one compact consumable
- Isolate only the clones that matterābefore spending time downstream
Using in-raft assays with flexible fluorescent readouts, researchers can detect generic IgG and antigen-specific antibodies in the same microwell, at the single-cell level.
How It Works
Why Antibody Discovery Needs a New Approach
From research tools to FDA-approved therapeutics, antibodies have revolutionized science and medicine. Yet the road from immunization to validated antibody is long and full of bottlenecksāespecially in the early discovery stages.
- Hybridoma screening is labor-intensive and prone to genetic drift.
- B-cell sequencing is expensive and provides no early functional readout.
- Recombinant antibody generation is limited by the ability to generate high-titer stable monoclonal cell lines.
Applications Across the Antibody Discovery Pipeline
Skip the sequencing-first approach. Use CellRaftA microscale polystyrene growth surface within an array used to spatially segregate cells/colonies while maintaining shared media access, enabling imaging over time and targeted isolation. AIR to identify and isolate antigen-specific B cells upfront.
In partnership with Duke University, Cell Microsystems screened 250,000 primary mouse plasma cells to identify antigen-specific target sequences.Ā Recombinant antibodies produced from these sequences yielded specificity equivalent to commercial antibodies.
Key Benefits:
- Screen tens of thousands of rare, non-dividing plasma cells
- Identify antigen-specific sequences before investing in expression vectors
- Reduce sequencing costs by enriching for functional hits first
Recover lost productivity from poor producing or unstable clones. In a collaboration with Tetracore, the AIR System was used to recover high-producing clones from a population where only 0.1% of cells were still antibody producing. All recovered clones produced >10x more antibody than the parental line and restored functionality to a discontinued commercial kit.
Key Benefits:
- Detect rare antibody producers (<0.1% of population)
- Avoid drifted clones
- Validate secretion before expansion
Hybridoma Screening Workflow
When expression doesnāt guarantee function, use CellRaft AIR to find your best producers early. Even in stably transduced, flow cytometry enriched cells, only a fraction actually secrete antibodies suitable for scale.
Key Benefits:
- Evaluate productivity of polyclonal populations and derive monoclonal production cell lines
- Select top performers based on secretion, not just transfection markers
- Avoid expanding non-functional clones
Recombinant Antibody Producer Selection Workflow
Advantages at a Glance
Ensuring cells undergoing gene editing grow into clonal colonies is an essential component of the editing workflow. Using the CellRaft AIRĀ® system, single cells can be imaged and tracked over the course of colony formation. In addition, the knockout phenotypes (elimination of GFP and RFP signal) can be tracked over time which provides a unique capability for phenotypic gene editing screening.
Feature | Traditional Methods | CellRaft AIR System |
|---|---|---|
Throughput | 1,000 cells per 10 plates | 40,000 cells per array |
Function-first screening | ā | ā
|
Clonal tracking | ā | ā
|
Media usage | ~4,000 mL for 10 plates | ~3 mL per array |
Hands-on time | Dozens of hours | ~21 hours total per campaign |
Scale flexibility | Limited | Scalable from 1 to 10+ arrays |
Want to Start Faster? Weāll Do It for You.
Our applications team offers lab services to help you:
- Rescue clones
- Screen hybridomas or plasma cells
- Develop custom antibody-expressing lines
When you’re ready, weāll help you bring the workflow in-house with full training and support.
Antibody Applications FAQs
Featured Resources
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