The genomic era has yielded a wealth of new genes for which function and inter-relationships remain unknown. At the same time there is an increasing appreciation of the limits of what can be learned from gene expression profiling, and of the need to examine protein expression and activity. Activation-state-specific antibodies have proven to be a convenient and reliable set of tools in the new post-genomic "research toolbox". Cell Signaling Technology, Inc. (CST) is committed to developing innovative new research tools such as these to help define the mechanisms underlying cell function and disease, thereby broadly accelerating progress in biomedical research and medicine.

CST strives to make novel antibodies of the highest possible quality by producing them in-house and rigorously characterizing them with respect to specificity and sensitivity. Production begins with extensive purification (typically by both protein A and peptide affinity chromatography) followed by testing by our staff scientists on a wide range of applications, including ELISA, western blotting, immunoprecipitation, immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry. Technical support is provided by the very scientists who make a given antibody and know it best. CST scientists are also responsible for creating most of the cell signaling reference material, including pathways, kinase trees and kinase disease associations that we offer our customers in the last chapter of this catalog and on our website.

Besides product development, CST is also actively engaged in research and new technology development. For example, this year CST published a novel affinity/mass spectrometry method for profiling tyrosine phosphorylation in Nature Biotechnology (23:94-101). Having validated our activation-state antibodies for clinically-relevant applications such as immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry, CST is also involved in numerous collaborations to explore their potential use as predictive biomarkers of disease. CST continues to expand an NIH-funded web resource of in vivo protein phosphorylation events (www.phosphosite.org), and is a partner of the Alliance for Cellular Signaling (http://afcs.org/) in its work modeling signal transduction.

With over 100 new activation-state-specific antibodies developed at CST this past year, the best way to keep up with our rapid rate of new product introduction is to check our website. The website also contains an online version of our unique signal transduction reference material, as well as a special section reflecting our commitment to the environment.