CiteAb is the world’s largest independent citation-ranked antibody search engine, giving researchers access to antibodies from over 60 companies worldwide.
CiteAb has worked with antibody suppliers to build a strong working relationship which ensures data in the search engine is completely up-to-date and regularly maintained.
These relationships are also allowing a number of fantastic offers on the purchase of antibodies searched for through the site during its launch week.
Dr Andrew Chalmers, from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry, developed the site with local web designers and Bath graduates Storm Consultancy.
Dr Chalmers said: “One of the biggest problems for a researcher is being sure that the antibody they’re about to spend hundreds of pounds on is going to work. They can waste time and money buying the wrong one.
“CiteAb solves this problem. We rank antibodies by citations as these are the best guide to whether an antibody is likely to work in the laboratory - citations are independent and easily verifiable, and no one can pay to be the top hit.
“CiteAb takes antibody data from the leading antibody manufacturers around the world, and processes it against academic citations taken from internationally verified journals. So far we are approaching 1 million antibodies with citations from over 115,000 different publications.”
The search engine is also asking researchers to upload their publications - giving them greater visibility and improving their chances of being cited, while also helping other researchers using CiteAb.
Andrew adds: “There are millions of pounds of waste in research every year caused by the purchase of the wrong antibodies. Furthermore, many manufacturers are not aware of all the things that their own antibodies are capable of. By collating citation information, CiteAb makes choosing an antibody a much clearer process.”
CiteAb is now live and can be visited at www.citeab.com. For news and discussion, as well as an opportunity to benefit from launch week freebies, see the blog, follow on Twitter at @CiteAb, or find CiteAb on LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook.
Andrew said: “We’re really keen to have the feedback of the research community - in CiteAb we’re aiming to create the go-to place for antibody search so any ideas will be received with thanks.”
The support of the Enterprise and Knowledge Exploitation team and the Research and Development Support Office has been essential in developing and launching CiteAb.