Antibody search engine CiteAb, which has developed an international user base since its launch in March 2013, has today announced its spinout from the University of Bath.

CiteAb was founded in 2013 by Dr Andrew Chalmers from the University’s Department of Biology & Biochemistry, in collaboration with Bath-based web development company Storm Consultancy, run by University of Bath graduates David Kelly and Adam Pope.

CiteAb has disrupted the industry by becoming the first global antibody search engine that combines free listing with impartial ranking by citations. It is now the largest antibody search engine in a $2billion industry, and ranked number one by Google.

CiteAb allows scientists to find antibodies for use in their research, and to easily see academic citations associated with those antibodies, proving that they will do the job required.

Dr Chalmers said: “One of the biggest problems for a researcher is being sure that the antibody they’re about to spend hundreds of pounds on is going to work. They can waste time and money buying the wrong one.

“CiteAb solves this problem. We rank antibodies by academic citations as these are the best guide to whether an antibody is likely to work in the laboratory - citations are independent and easily verifiable, and no one can pay to be the top hit.”

David Kelly said: “CiteAb takes antibody data from the leading antibody manufacturers around the world, and processes it against academic citations taken from internationally verified journals. CiteAb now lists over 1.5 million antibodies from 92 suppliers, with over 310,000 different citations, so is a highly complex search tool.”

CiteAb has received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s ‘Knowledge Transfer Champion Fund’ and from the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s ‘Innovation Fund’. It also secured funds from the University of Bath’s Research Development and Support Office to support growth and development prior to spinout.

Graham Fisher, Commercialisation Manager for the University of Bath’s Enterprise and Knowledge Exploitation team, said: “CiteAb provides a top notch service to researchers, and also deals with huge amounts of research data which is extremely useful to antibody manufacturers. The team at CiteAb are currently exploring ways to use this data which will ensure the long-term success of this project as a commercial enterprise.”

Dr Chalmers said: “We are grateful to all those at the University of Bath who has helped with the development of CiteAb to date, especially the Enterprise and Knowledge Exploitation team, the Research, Development and Support Office, Legal Services and my own department, Biology & Biochemistry.”

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