Antibody Applicaitons
Antibody Discovery
Accelerate Antibody Discovery. Minimize the Guesswork. Maximize the Output
CellRaft Technology offers an automated, forward screening platform for antibody-secreting cells—now you can rapidly identify targets with confidence before investing downstream.
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 bottlenecks—especially 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.
These methods also require resource intensive downstream assays to determine which cells are producing functional, specific antibodies—wasting time and resources screening cells that may never yield useful hits.
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 matter—before 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.
Applications Across the Antibody Discovery Pipleline
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
Skip the sequencing-first approach. Use CellRaft 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. 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
Single B-Cell Screening Workflow
When expression doesn’t 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
How It Works
- Miniaturized ELISA
Detect antibody secretion in situ with fluorescent capture reagents - Image-based Cytometry
Use CellRaft Cytometry software to identify viable antigen-specific cells - Fluidics-Free Isolation
Recover cells on biocompatible rafts for direct expansion or sequencing - 96-Well Compatibility
Seamlessly integrate into ELISA, sequencing, and production workflows
Advantages at a Glance
Ensuring cells undergoing gene editing grow into clonal colonies is an essential component of the editing workflow. Using the CellRaft AIR® 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 | ❌ | ✅ |
Clonal tracking | ❌ | ✅ |
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? We'll 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, we’ll help you bring the workflow in-house with full training and support.