Open Science project funded for $1.5M
YCharOS antibody characterization platform addresses the “reproducibility crisis” in research
An innovative research project led by researchers at The Neuro has been awarded $1.5M by the Government of Quebec through CQDM.
YCharOS is an innovative platform led by neuroscientists Peter McPherson and Carl Laflamme that validates antibody reagents for human proteins.
Commercially available antibodies are key reagents in laboratory research with global sales estimated to be $2-3 billion USD. However, despite the size of the market and the importance of the product there is no independent, state-of-the-art quality assessment body for antibodies and as a result at least half of the antibodies on the market do not perform as required – leading to billions of dollars of wasted funding. The problem 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, open access way. This project promises significant public health benefits by providing high-quality antibodies for research on brain-related targets, which could accelerate the development of new treatments for neurological diseases.
The YCharOS platform also benefits industry by providing a public database that is useful to the international scientific community, supporting significant advances in neurological research. Furthermore, this project helps reduce validation costs for pharmaceutical companies and strengthens the Quebec research ecosystem by promoting discoveries based on more robust and reproducible results.
About CQDM
CQDM is a not-for-profit biopharmaceutical research consortium whose mission is to support and facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborative R&D aimed at accelerating the translation of innovative technologies by the biopharma industry into solutions that address unmet medical needs, while generating significant benefits for the Quebec and Canadian economy. For more information, please visit the website:
