Along with our partners Aves Labs and PhosphoSolutions, we've designed a fun and engaging contest for all of our booth visitors at SfN 2019 in Chicago.

Here’s how it works:

Visit each company’s booth (PhosphoSolutions #574, Aves #1643, Antibodies #1645) and pick up a game card. Each card will have a question that tests your antibody knowledge. (See below for a sneak peek at the questions!) After you have collected all three cards for that day and answered the questions, turn in your answers at any booth to enter the daily iPad drawing.

It’s that easy, and we hope that you will learn a little more about antibodies in the process!

How to win:

There will be a new set of questions on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and a new drawing each day -- and you can play ALL THREE DAYS! To win, your entry has to be drawn (of course) and your answers have to be right!

But wait, there’s more!

Anyone who enters any of the daily drawings at SfN AND follows each of Antibodies, Aves and PhosphoSolutions on Twitter will be entered automatically into a fourth iPad drawing, which we will conduct one week after the conference. Make sure you list your Twitter handle and email on the game slips you submit so we can verify and contact you if you win!

Follow us now! @antibodiesinc, @aveslabs and @phosphosolution

  



Questions for Sunday, October 20

Which of the following is true about the development of mouse monoclonal antibodies using hybridoma technology:

  • The technique was invented in the early 1990s by researchers at Harvard.
  • The technique requires virus-mediated immortalization of mouse B cells
  • Provides an infinitely renewable source of monoclonal antibody.
  • Allows for the creation of a variety of monoclonal antibodies from a single immunized mouse.
  • (C) and (D)
  • (B) and (C)

 

Which of the following is true about antibody development in chickens?

  • Chickens generally make better antibodies against conserved mammalian proteins than mice or rabbits because chickens began evolving separately from mammals about 310 million years ago and their immune system sees these proteins as being "foreign."
  • Chicken antibodies are generally harvested from blood draws taken from the chicken.
  • Chicken antibodies are generally harvested from eggs that they lay.
  • (A) and (B)
  • (A) and (C)

 

Phosphorylation changes the conformation of proteins resulting in:

  • Protein activation
  • Protein deactivation
  • Modification of protein function
  • All of the above

 



Questions for Monday, October 21

Which of the following is true about multiplex immunostaining?

  • Two or more unconjugated mouse monoclonal antibodies cannot be used together for multiplex immunostaining because anti-mouse secondary antibodies cannot distinguish one mouse monoclonal antibody from another.
  • Because mouse monoclonal antibodies can be of different isotypes, there are mouse secondary antibodies that specifically bind to one isotype or another and allow for multiple mouse monoclonal antibodies to be used together in multiplex labeling experiments.

 

Which of the following is true about chicken antibodies?

  • Chicken antibodies are devoid of light chains and are often referred to as "nanobodies."
  • Although rabbit and mouse antibodies are normally referred to as IgG, chicken antibodies are referred to as IgY.
  • A single chicken egg contains as much as 80 mg of antibody.
  • All of the above
  • (B) and (C)

 

Lot-to-lot variations are sometimes seen using polyclonal antibodies because:

  • The antibody has been purified from different animals
  • The antibody has been purified from various unpooled bleeds of the same animal
  • Different antigens were used to produce the antibodies
  • All of the above

 



Questions for Tuesday, October 22

Which of the following is true about the use of antibodies in scientific research?

  • Only monoclonal antibodies should be trusted since polyclonal antibodies can give spurious results.
  • Polyclonal antibodies generally give a much stronger signal than monoclonal antibodies because they can bind to multiple epitopes (sites) on the target protein.
  • Monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies can both be valuable research tools provided they are both properly validated.
  • (A) and (B)
  • (B) and (C)

 

Which of the following is true about GFP?

  • Discovery, and development of this protein for use in cell biology, earned 3 scientists the Nobel prize in chemistry.
  • The proteins DsRed and mCherry were developed from GFP through selective introduction of mutations that changed GFP’s excitation/emission spectrum.
  • It is the protein target of a highly-cited Aves Labs antibody (Aves Labs anti-GFP)
  • All of the above
  • (A) and (C)

 

Antibodies should be validated in Western blots using:

  • Purified or overexpressed protein
  • Native tissue or cell lines
  • Knockouts when available
  • All of the above
  • (B) and (C)