{"id":82432,"date":"2026-05-15T08:52:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\/?post_type=kb_presseinformation&p=82432"},"modified":"2026-05-15T08:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:54:23","slug":"animal-free-antibodies","status":"publish","type":"kb_presseinformation","link":"https:\/\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\/en\/pi-post\/animal-free-antibodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal-free antibodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust, researchers at Technische Universit\u00e4t Braunschweig, have been awarded the \u2018Replication Prize\u2019 by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)<\/a>, in collaboration with other partners. The team was recognised for its work, which improves the reproducibility of antibody experiments and avoids the use of animal experiments.<\/p>\n

Antibodies play a key role in biomedical research and are widely used in medical diagnostics. However, the results of experiments using antibodies derived from animal blood are only reproducible to a limited extent, as only a limited amount of blood can be collected from each animal. Different animals always produce individually varying mixtures of antibodies, meaning that long-term reproducibility of the results cannot be guaranteed. In addition, animal sera always contain many \u2018undesirable\u2019 antibodies that can distort the results.<\/p>\n

Antibodies produced entirely without animal testing<\/h3>\n

Using antibodies produced entirely in vitro via genetic engineering and thus completely free from animal experiments (\u201crecombinant antibodies\u201d), the award winners were able to demonstrate through numerous examples \u2013 ranging from research to drug development \u2013 that recombinant antibodies are superior to animal blood products in terms of the reproducibility of results. The reasons for this are, firstly, that the recombinant reagent contains no \u2018undesirable\u2019 antibodies, as is the case with animal blood. Secondly, unlike animal-derived products, the blueprint of the antibody reagent is known. Using this formula, the exact same antibody can be produced in the future and in any quantity, thereby guaranteeing the reproducibility of the results.<\/p>\n

The award-winning team led by Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust comprises partners from research, industry and animal welfare: Dr Esther Wenzel and Dr Kilian Zilkens from the Braunschweig-based biotechnology company ABCALIS, as well as an international team of twelve other scientists from the French 3R Centre, the French INSERM, the animal welfare organisation PETA, TU Berlin, the University of Geneva, Utrecht University and the companies Abcam, ABCD Antibodies and Unilever.<\/p>\n

Efficient and cost-effective method<\/h3>\n

The contributions from Braunschweig to antibody research cover a broad spectrum of applications. Over the course of decades, Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust at TU Braunschweig have developed and optimized a method now used worldwide to produce human antibodies with countless different specificities \u2013 i.e. for a vast array of applications \u2013 in a test tube without any animal experiments. The TU team has also succeeded in making the method so efficient and cost-effective that the antibodies, with their superior properties, can now be used worldwide as research reagents. To this end, Abcalis GmbH was spun off from TU Braunschweig; the company is also part of the winning team and has been producing and distributing “vegan” antibodies for researchers around the world since 2020.<\/p>\n

In addition to the development of fully sequence-defined human recombinant antibodies, the winner team\u2019s award-winning work also encompasses promoting the move away from animal-derived reagents, maintaining bioinformatic databases for defined antibody sequences and validation data, and integrating recombinant antibodies as teaching content into university curricula.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis high-profile recognition by the US National Institutes of Health of the superior quality of antibodies produced without animal testing is a powerful endorsement of our long-standing research goals. Hopefully, this will also help to raise awareness of our \u2018vegan\u2019 antibodies and their advantages among users of antibody tests,\u201d says Professor D\u00fcbel, who heads the Department of Biotechnology at TU Braunschweig and co-invented the underlying method of antibody phage display.<\/p>\n

Professor Michael Hust, Head of the Department of Medical Biotechnology at TU Braunschweig, who also led the team that developed an antibody against the coronavirus for clinical use in record time, adds: \u201cWe thank our team members for many years of fruitful collaboration and look forward to developing further high-quality recombinant antibodies for diagnostics and therapy in ongoing and future projects.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Background:<\/h3>\n

Biomedical research constantly yields new scientific findings that expand our understanding of human health and open up new treatment options for diseases. The independent reproducibility of each experiment (\u2018replication\u2019) is the foundation for trustworthy results and progress. In some areas of research, however, the reproducibility of results is not yet optimal. The US National Institutes of Health\u2019s \u201cNIH Common Fund\u201d has therefore joined forces with NASA\u2019s Tournament Lab to launch the \u201cReplication Prize\u201d. The competition seeks ideas and strategies to improve the reproducibility of key areas of biomedical research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust, researchers at Technische … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":82431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","class_list":["post-82432","kb_presseinformation","type-kb_presseinformation","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kb_cat_presse-research","kb_tags-awards","kb_tags-biology","kb_tags-engineering-for-health","kb_tags-international-en","kb_tags_internal-alumni"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnimal-free antibodies - TU Braunschweig | Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust, researchers at Technische Universit\u00e4t Braunschweig, have been awarded the \u2018Replication Prize\u2019 by the US\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\/en\/pi-post\/animal-free-antibodies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Animal-free antibodies - TU Braunschweig | Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust, researchers at Technische Universit\u00e4t Braunschweig, have been awarded the \u2018Replication Prize\u2019 by the US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\/en\/pi-post\/animal-free-antibodies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TU Braunschweig | Blogs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-15T06:54:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/replication-challenge_web.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/\",\"name\":\"Animal-free antibodies - TU Braunschweig | Blogs\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/replication-challenge_web.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-15T06:52:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-15T06:54:23+00:00\",\"description\":\"Professor Stefan D\u00fcbel and Professor Michael Hust, researchers at Technische Universit\u00e4t Braunschweig, have been awarded the \u2018Replication Prize\u2019 by the US\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/en\\\/pi-post\\\/animal-free-antibodies\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/replication-challenge_web.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/magazin.tu-braunschweig.de\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/replication-challenge_web.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":1000,\"caption\":\"Drei gl\u00fcckliche Gewinner: (v.l.n.r.:) Dr. Esther Wenzel (Abcalis), Prof. Michael und Hust Prof. Stefan D\u00fcbel. 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