We found a major flaw in a scientific reagent used in thousands of neuroscience experiments — and we’re trying to fix it.

https://www.thetransmitter.org/open...cience-experiments-and-were-trying-to-fix-it/

 

Nothing new about the problem but it is good that someone has tried to address it systematically.

 

And we have known that in spades since we started using monoclonals. I was the first person, as far as I know, in 1979, to use monoclonal antibodies to stain joint tissues in rheumatic disease. The problem was readily apparent from the start. And the reason was obvious. With traditional polyclonal antibodies the cross reactivities of all the component Ig species just gave a bit of background noise, which can be absorbed out with something like liver powder if needed. But for a monoclonal a single cross reactivity could easily be ten times stronger than the specificity you are wanting. You cannot absorb that out for a monoclonal because you just absorb out all your reagent.