Diphtheria toxin: The nuts and bolts
The Native Antigen Company manufactures high-quality Diphtheria toxin in its native format for a range of applications and is offering a 30% discount on this product for the remainder of 2019. In this blog we explain the structure, mechanism-of-action and applications...
TEM images of our virus-like particles
It’s always nice to visualise what you’re working with. In this blog, we present new electron microscopy (TEM) images for some of our virus-like particles. For more information on our VLPs, please click on the links below. Why do we use VLPs? Virus-like...
Endotoxin Testing Services
In this blog, we describe the structure of bacterial endotoxins, how they cause contamination in bioproduction, and introduce our endotoxin testing services for the UK and Europe. What are endotoxins? Endotoxins are small (~10 kDa) molecules of lipopolysacchride...
Diagnosing HIV in resource-limited settings
In this blog, we discuss the need for improved point-of-care (PoC) diagnostics for HIV and present the virus’s cellular mechanism to illustrate our new range of HIV antigens and antibodies. HIV in the developed world On June 5th 1981 in Los Angeles, California,...
Green Science
We don’t need to lay out the case for climate change, loss of biodiversity or plastic pollution; the wealth of evidence from our scientific colleagues studying this is both compelling and accepted world-wide. The bigger question really is: what can we do to stop it?...
Our Product Pipeline
If you’ve been following us on social media recently, you might have noticed that we’ve been releasing a lot of new antigens and antibodies. In this blog, we explain how we use the WHO R&D Blueprint to guide our product development and present some highlights from...
Our Assay Development Services
The Native Antigen Company’s assay development team has many years of experience in developing high quality assays for infectious disease and other research applications. With our wealth of experience, we offer end-to-end bespoke development with communication at...
Reagents for Rapid Ebola Diagnostics
The Democratic Republic of Congo is in the grips of the second-worst Ebola outbreak it has experienced, which has now been ongoing for a year with little sign of stopping. In this blog, we discuss the important role that diagnostics play in preventing Ebola outbreaks,...
From Outbreak to Epidemic: A Short History of The Ebola Virus
In the first of a two-part series, we discuss the history of the Ebola virus up to the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and why this disease has been so challenging to fight. The 2014/15 epidemic In the summer of 2014, the world watched as the...
ELISA Formats for Infectious Disease Diagnostics
The field of diagnostics is rapidly developing, yet ELISA and PCR methods remain the most commonly used techniques in the diagnosis of bacterial and viral infections. In this blog, we discuss the advantages of using serological methods over molecular, PCR-based...
The world’s most extensive range of NS1-specific antibodies for flavivirus research
The Native Antigen Company first gained prominence in 2016, when it developed highly pure Zika virus NS1 protein during the 2015/2016 epidemic. Since then, the company has developed an extensive range of highly specific antigens, antibodies and immunoassays for...
Flavivirus NS1: A Short Introduction
In the first of a two-part series, we describe the structure of Flavivirus Non-Structural Protein 1 (NS1) and the role that it plays in viral pathogenesis. Flavivirus proteins Flaviviruses are single-stranded, enveloped RNA viruses, belonging to the Flaviviridae...
Paper Synopsis: ELISA formats and antibody quenching to reduce ZIKV cross-reactivity
While the 2015/16 Zika epidemic no longer makes the headlines, there remains a crucial need to accurately and reliably diagnose Zika virus (ZIKV) infection to identify and manage further outbreaks. However, high levels of cross-reactivity among cocirculating...
Viral Lysates for Diagnostic Research
We’ve recently expanded our range of native viral cell lysates to complement our highly pure recombinant antigens. Here, we explain how our lysates are made and their uses in infectious disease R&D. What are viral lysates? Put simply, viral lysates are...
Cellular Receptors for Viral Entry
The most crucial step for viruses during human infection is recognition and entry into host cells. For this to happen, specific proteins on the virus capsid interact with those on the host cells’ surface, through a ‘lock-and-key’-type mechanism that...
Using Adenoviruses to Fight Cancer
In the second of a 2-part series, we discuss how adenoviruses are being developed to treat cancer and some of the hurdles these platforms face from our own immune systems. Curing cancer is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Our knowledge of cancer’s...
Repurposing Adenoviruses as Vectors for Vaccines
In the first of a 2-part series, we explore what makes adenoviruses so useful in gene therapy applications and how they are being developed as vectors for vaccines at the Jenner Institute in Oxford. Adenoviruses (ADVs) are non-enveloped icosahedral DNA viruses...
New Immunofluorescence Data for our CMV, Yellow Fever and Ebola Antibodies
In September 2018 The Native Antigen Company and Virology Research Services (VRS) were awarded the Medical Research Council (Proximity to Discovery Award for Knowledge Exchange) to test a large panel of our viral antibodies in immunofluorescence applications. This...
Why are ticks such good vectors of pathogens?
In this blog, Professor Patricia Nuttall discusses what makes ticks such effective vectors of pathogens and how we might prevent the spread of tick-borne diseases. About Patrica Nuttall Pat Nuttall is Emeritus Professor of Arbovirology in the Department of Zoology,...
Our Contract Services
How can we help with your project? While we are best known for our antigen and antibody products, our team has decades of experience in the field of native antigen and recombinant protein contract research, process development and bespoke production. We can undertake...
Perfecting Plasmid Production
Buy some off-the-shelf LB, whack in your bugs, job done? Not so fast there, it turns out there are some subtleties in plasmid production that you may not have thought would exist as our R&D scientist Ludovic Laigle explains… As part of our R&D process, LB...
Dengue in 2019
What’s going on with dengue? Dengue virus (DENV) has been in the news a lot recently. The number of reported cases continues to climb year-on-year and 2019 has been especially bad. Rio de Janeiro has seen a 45% increase in dengue cases in the first two months of...
Zika Prevalence in Suriname: Evidence for Zika Cross-Reactivity
A recent study published by Langerak et al. tested for the seroprevalence of Zika virus in Suriname populations and evaluated the comparative effectiveness of using a commercial ELISA and a standard Virus Neutralisation Assay. Here we discuss the study, its results,...