June 15, 2013 (Vol. 33, No. 12)
Rating:
Strong Points: Beautiful site design, good search options
Weak Points: Many antibody entries do not yet have citations
Summary:
Antibodies are notoriously finicky, leaving many researchers to wonder, “Has anyone ever gotten this to work in the first place?” The answer to that question, of course, can be found by searching the literature for relevant citations… Or, alternatively, you can click over to CiteAb, a recently launched antibody database that is self-touted as “the world’s most comprehensive antibody search engine.” CiteAb delivers precisely what its name promises: when one searches for a particular antibody, he/she receives a list of all of the companies that make that antibody, as well as a list of citations for publications in which each company-specific antibody was used. Thus far the site boasts a database containing close to 900,000 antibodies and more than 100,000 citations, so clearly the citation resource exists for some but not yet all database entries. However, with the “add a citation” feature, hopefully more researchers will help to annotate the entries in order to truly make this website a top-notch reference.