Medical & Biological Laboratories (MBL)
Medical & Biological Laboratories (MBL) is a leading life science company focused on providing solutions for researchers in the life sciences, drug discovery and development and clinical diagnostics fields. Their special emphasis is on immunology, immuno-oncology, oncology and autoimmune disease areas.
Their products include antibodies, recombinant proteins, fluorescent proteins, and ELISA kits. They are highly cited and support numerous research fields relating to oncology, allergies, apoptosis, autophagy, epigenetics and neuroscience.
MBL is known for their line of immune monitoring reagents, including MHC Tetramers, as well as their line of QuickSwitch™ products for screening peptides and neoantigens.
As a JSR Life Sciences Company, MBL is committed to improving the probability of success, decreasing timelines, and increasing the efficacy of biologics-based therapies for the benefit of patients.
MHC Tetramers
MHC tetramer technology is based on the ability of MHC-peptide complexes to recognise the antigen-specific T cells at a single-cell level. This breakthrough technology enables researchers to precisely measure targeted T-cell responses in infectious diseases, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Using this method, it is certain that any signal that is observed is due to a specific T cell response and not due to an overall increase in T cell presence.
MHC tetramers are composed of four monomers bound to a peptide. The monomers are biotinylated and held together using fluorescently labelled streptavidin. Some researchers have found that using MHC multimers with more than 4 monomers results in non-specific binding. By using MHC tetramers, the binding affinity of the peptide and TCR remains high while reducing/avoiding low non-specific binding.
MBL has incorporated the patented mutation of the α3 domain in their HLA class I tetramers and is the only manufacturer of MHC multimers with this technology to enhance specificity for the antigen-specific T cell receptor.
MBL offers many alleles and sequence combinations for human and mouse MHC tetramers.
Organoid Cell Culture
Organoids are key 3-dimensional tissue structures widely used in drug discovery and various medical treatments due to their flexibility and how they can reflect cellular characteristics. When culturing organoids, two growth factors are key to development: Wnt3a and FGF.
MBL supports advances in cell culture by offering Afamin/Wnt3a Condition Medium, recombinant Afamin/Wnt3a and FGF-Max.
General Research Reagents
MBL develops, manufactures, and markets a broad portfolio of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, fluorescent proteins, ELISA kits and several other reagents for scientific research.
ELISAs for Clinical Diagnosis of Autoimmune Diseases
MBL provides RUO & IVD ELISA kits for the detection & diagnosis of autoantibodies commonly encountered in the following autoimmune diseases:
- Autoimmune Blistering Diseases
- Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis