Abcalis GmbH

What is really animal-free and what is not. Find out!

🎉Today Abcalis celebrates its 5th anniversary! It's hard to believe what we've already experienced: 2018: 💶 Getting the EXIST - Existenzgründungen aus der Wissenschaft Grant at the second attempt, right at the beginning we had to hire an economist (our onboarding is classes better today), who accompanied us excellently for the time of the Exist grant (Pascal Milfeit). With 2 scientists (Giulio Russo, Esther Wenzel), a TA (Saskia, then Rita, later Janin) and changing assistants (Lea, Lena, Nina, Ruben, Luis, Denis, Alex, Abdullah, Alshymaa) we developed the multiclonals. We made first experiences at Medica and in incubators and accelerators (SNIC Life Science Inkubator). 🤝 The company was founded at the end of 2019, and here too we were faced with the challenge of what our Shareholders Board should look like. 🦠 Coronavirus arrived in 2020 and we worked like crazy as we conducted research in the field of coronavirus diagnostics together with a major project partner. We received the #Innovation Award of the state Niedersachsen, the #Göttinger Innovation award and the "Investitions- und Förderbank Niedersachsen – NBank #Durchstarterpreis". 🌬 In 2021, Dr. Kilian Zilkens arrived and Giulio left us, but we somehow survived that (the latter ;-), Kilian brought new spirit into the team. Another major project with a global diagnostics market leader was Kilian's baptism of fire. 🌍 In 2022, Pascal left us and Laila Al-Halabi-Frenzel could join the team fulltime. We kicked off our first EU-funded project BioAssembler and were awarded with Exist 2 funding (again at the second attempt). Jan joined the team as a doctoral student. Another big project, this time with a pharmaceutical company, brought us extensive experience in assay development. We receive the #ECEAE Price on the animal free antibodies and the #Gründungspreis Braunschweig. 🤯 2023: Numerous small projects and large projects kept us very busy. We were increasingly spreading information about animal-free antibodies beyond our actual business activities. Esther became a member of committees that deal scientifically with classification and similar topics on animal free antibodies. Kilian educated people at helpathons and science slams and Laila was looking for new spaces in Braunschweig and the surrounding area and supported young founders. Kilian became shareholder at Abcalis. 🥼 2024: The major projects could be closed successfully and more quiet times were coming. Our second EU grant ARMADILLO EU Project gave us further motivation and Tarushyam Mukherjee joined the team. We developed a comprehensive onboarding process. With the end of the year more and more projects that were initiated years before, now get rolling (I think they call it "a veeery long runway"). Conclusion in the comments. AI picture: https://lnkd.in/ewY23Fne All other pictures: Abcalis/Arne Weychardt

🐰 When we're not rescuing animals, we also like to rescue people. 🆘 And to make sure it turns out well, we had ourselves trained in first aid together. 🤯 8 hours of concentrated knowledge left our heads spinning:  How do you recognise a stroke or a heart attack?  How do you resuscitate and how and why do you use a defibrillator? ☠️ What do you do in the event of an electrical accident or intoxication? And how do you make frightened children's eyes light up again with a cute finger bandage? 🤝 First aiders are mandatory in the workplace. We have simply gone one step further and turned it into a team event in which everyone was allowed to take part. Thanks to Malteser in Deutschland Braunschweig for the very instructive training. 💚 #firstaid #heartattack #stroke #teambuilding #antibodies

Welcome Tarushyam! 🧫 Tarushyam has joined the Abcalis research team today. 🌎 After his travels all over the world (Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar , Universität Straßburg, Arizona State University and RWTH Aachen University) he finally ended in beautiful Braunschweig 🧬 Tarushyam brings a lot of biochemical experience that will help us to customise our antigens even more specifically for our antibody development campaigns. 🛂 But mainly Tarushyam will lead our new EU project #Armadillo, in co-operation with our Work package 3 partners Jobst Technologies GmbH - an IST AG company, National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos" and ThetaMetrisis S.A. he will enable the specific detection of GHB in human samples by means of automated application. 🥳 We are very happy to have you here, Tarushyam! #GHB #veganantibodies #diagnostics #civilsecurity

To all the desperate scientists in research: this week we found an interesting news feature on Nature Magazine that might explain the one or other phenomenon. Here is a short summary and link to the original article:   🧪 Antibodies are useful in laboratory experiments due to their ability to bind specifically and selectively to defined structures.   👩🔬 Scientists have long known that many commercial antibodies don’t work as they should — they often fail to recognize a specific protein or non-selectively bind to several other targets. The result is a waste of time and resources that some say has contributed to a ‘reproducibility crisis’ in the biological sciences, potentially slowing the pace of discovery and drug development.   ❗The reason for those poor performing antibodies can be found in the partially undefined production process of antibodies and the inconsistent certification and regulation.   💫 Not less than solving this problem is the mission of Antibody Characterization through Open Science (YCharOS Inc., pronounced ‘Icarus’), an initiative that aims to characterize commercially available research antibodies for every human protein.   As a part of the Recombinant Antibodies And Mimetics Database we totally support those initiatives and are proud to contribute to more reliable research and diagnostics 💚 https://lnkd.in/eeed7a5P #Abcalis #YCharOS #RecombinantAntibodiesAndMimeticsDatabase Harvinder Virk #NADA #animalfreeantibodies   Illustration: Fabio Buonocore

Once again, it is time for us to travel to Düsseldorf to join MEDICA - Leading International Trade Fair. Our very own Dr. Kilian Zilkens will be talking to producers of diagnostics products and other industry experts about the transition towards truly animal-free antibodies. If you would like to join the conversation, contact us to arrange a meeting. ☎ If you will not be there in person, let us arrange an online meeting to discuss how we can advance your scientific projects. 📧

Last Wednesday, Esther Wenzel and Dr. Kilian Zilkens represented us at Life Science Valley's Demo Day!

Wonderful Vienna was the location of our second Bioassembler consortium meeting. Yes, coffee ☕ in all its variants, magnificient buildings 🏯 , the reason for low rental costs, details to the three only original austrian dishes 🍰 , we consumed and learned a lot. Beside the discussion of progress and potential delays of our Bioassembler Work packages we took a look into the future and outlined the application field of biosensor devices in the context of diagnostics in our health systems (and maybe it was a little bit disillusioning). The project benefits not only from many excellent engineers and life science researchers but also from our socioeconomic researchers from CES. And inspired by our scientific advisors Electra Gizeli and Klaus-Peter Stengele we realized that approaching the society and the "normal" people should be one of our major tasks. Thanks to Gisela Ibanez and Mark Somoza for hosting us, thank you to all the consortium members for the good discussion and work within the last year and we are looking forward to meeting you in Vienna again next year. Do you consider yourself as a "normal" person? What is your definition of a biosensor, is there a unique meaning? Is a lateral flow test a biosensor or is it not? #VTT #Bioassembler #UniVie #JobstTechnologies #Biomensio #AnimalfreeAntibodies #EuropeanResearch

Wonderful Vienna was the location of our second Bioassembler consortium meeting. Yes, coffee ☕ in all its variants, magnificient buildings 🏯 , the reason for low rental costs, details to the three only original austrian dishes 🍰 , we consumed and learned a lot. Beside the discussion of progress and potential delays of our Bioassembler Work packages we took a look into the future and outlined the application field of biosensor devices in the context of diagnostics in our health systems (and maybe it was a little bit disillusioning). The project benefits not only from many excellent engineers and life science researchers but also from our socioeconomic researchers from CES. And inspired by our scientific advisors Electra Gizeli and Klaus-Peter Stengele we realized that approaching the society and the "normal" people should be one of our major tasks. Thanks to Gisela Ibanez and Mark Somoza for hosting us, thank you to all the consortium members for the good discussion and work within the last year and we are looking forward to meeting you in Vienna again next year. Do you consider yourself as a "normal" person? What is your definition of a biosensor, is there a unique meaning? Is a lateral flow test a biosensor or is it not? #VTT #Bioassembler #UniVie #JobstTechnologies #Biomensio #AnimalfreeAntibodies #EuropeanResearch

Laila on the Road.