Single-domain antibodies (nanobodies) are becoming increasingly popular as reagents for biomedical research for  therapeutic use, and as reagents for diagnostics. The number of publications citing antibodies is increasing each year with over 2,000 publications cited in PubMed to date. This is due, in large part, to their small size, stability, high affinity, high specificity, ease of manipulation, and ease of production.  

Through resources provided by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, our university-based Protein Core is producing single domain antibodies in alpacas on a fee for service structure. Our facility immunizes alpacas with your protein of interest, amplifies the produced pool of nanobody cDNAs by PCR and generates a phagemid library, which is then screened by panning against your protein. Positive clones are sequenced, with nanobodies to your target confirmed by ELISA. Deliverables include the nanobodies to your protein, produced and purified from E. Coli with 1 mg of purified nanobody, the nanobody clone, and its sequence. To date we have successfully generated more than 75 nanobodies. These nanobodies are for research purposes.

In many cases our core can produce your protein for nanobody production by expressing it in E. coli, insect cells, or mammalian cells and purifying it.

The next round of nanobody production will start in early November, 2021. The cost to produce a nanobody is $9,000. To produce a nanobody to your protein we need approximately 1.5 mg of purified protein in PBS or HBS at a concentration of 1 mg/ml or higher. We typically deliver your nanobody within 4 – 6 months. Usually we identify more than one nanobody against a particular protein which can be purchased for a nominal cost. A range of derivatives and conjugates are also available. 

To request a nanobody produced to your protein please fill out and return this request form, or contact Lou Hersh: