Covance Research Products (CRP) is a leading drug development services company that offers custom polyclonal and monoclonal antibody production as one of their many areas of service. With a wide range of animals available for immunization, CRP has a number of established immunization protocols (for my project they immunized every two weeks for three months (or until a reasonable immune response was attained)) but they can create custom protocols for individuals. I have been working with CRP for about six months now and my overall experience with them has been extremely positive. I chose CRP as my source of antibody production for two reasons: some of my colleagues had positive experiences with CRP and their prices were well below that of some of the other big names in antibody production.
My individual project involved injecting a guinea pig with a GST fusion protein that I had partially purified over a glutathione sepharose column. I ran the sample on an SDS-PAGE gel and simply cut out the band that corresponded to my fusion protein and mailed it to CRP. After two weeks, I was sent a sample ‘bleed’ so that I could test its specificity. Over the weeks, I received more bleeds and saw the immune response strengthen. Eventually, I obtained a usable antibody that was very specific and concentrated. CRP also offers a service where they perform ELISA’s on the bleeds to determine antibody reactivity (unfortunately my protein was insoluble and thus couldn’t be used in an ELISA). CRP sent me updated copies of the master schedule list so that I was aware of their progress and could monitor and/or change progression as I felt was needed.
One of the most positive aspects about CRP is their willingness to allow you to create your own protocol and immunization schedule. Their technical support staff was very helpful and always followed up on my progress. When calling CRP with a question, I talked with people who were knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly. Since I had such success with my antibody production, I decided not to terminate the project three months after its initiation and to continue it until I was sure I had all the antibody I need - CRP was more than willing to comply.
In the end, I feel that CRP was an excellent choice for my antibody production project. The prices are reasonable, the staff is friendly, knowledgeable and well informed, and the outcome is unbeatable. I would not hesitate to use CRP for future antibody services and would recommend them to others.
Kristin Nastase
Graduate Student
Johns Hopkins University