Welcome to the 2020 CiteAb Awards

Celebrating the very best suppliers and individuals in the research reagent sector worldwide.

Lifetime achievement award

Dr Michael Browning

This prestigious award highlights an outstanding individual who has made a significant impact in the reagent sector.

We’re thrilled to announce that Dr Michael Browning, founder and CEO of PhosphoSolutions, has been named winner of the CiteAb Lifetime Achievement Award 2020.

In a career spanning four decades, Dr Browning has served the cause of scientific discovery as an exemplary neuroscientist, mentor, and business leader.

His unimpeachable integrity and dedication to scientific rigor has inspired countless grad students, post docs and employees and set a standard of excellence in the reagent industry.

Dr Browning’s mission to contribute reliable antibodies to the research community began during his post doc years in Nobel Laureate Dr. Paul Greengard’s lab at Yale in the 1980s. Studying the critical roles synapsin proteins play in synaptic function, he saw first-hand the connection between antibody quality and outstanding research outcomes.

As a professor at the University of Colorado in the Pharmacology and Neuroscience departments, Dr Browning developed antibodies to proteins involved in LTP, widely regarded as the key cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory.

In the early 1990s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA recognized Dr. Browning’s understanding of antibodies as research tools and awarded him a grant to develop additional novel antibodies. Numerous subsequent publications cited his home-grown antibodies, and the NIH urged him to commercialise his work - resulting in the development of PhosphoSolutions.

Dr Browning has long been a proponent of polyclonal antibodies owing to their versatility and robustness. He was an industry leader in advocating reagent reproducibility well before there was a ‘reproducibility crisis’. At his direction in 2006, PhosphoSolutions instituted a unique-in-the-industry serum pooling initiative by which antibodies are released only when a large supply of serum had been amassed, positively screened and then pooled. This practice guarantees a 20-year supply of a given antibody purified from homogenous starting material with virtually no lot-to-lot variability.

Recognising Dr. Browning’s leadership in reproducibility, GBSI invited him to attend its landmark 2016 Antibody Validation workshop, where Dr Browning called for antibody manufacturers to adopt serum pooling and improve and standardise internal validation.

In September 2019, Dr Browning joined PhosphoSolutions with Antibodies Incorporated and Aves Labs to form a family of small manufacturers providing reagents that researchers can rely on.

Dr. Browning has a wife and two grown sons. In his spare time he enjoys golf and spending time with his family.

Dr Andrew Chalmers, founder of CiteAb, said: “I wish to offer my personal congratulations to Dr Michael Browning on winning the CiteAb Lifetime Achievement Award. Anyone who has met him couldn’t fail to be impressed by his enthusiasm and dedication to improving antibodies for the research community. This is a well-deserved award following a remarkable career. Many congratulations to Dr Browning from me and the whole CiteAb team.”

Other Categories

Explore additional categories featuring in the 2020 CiteAb Awards.

Environmental initiative of the year

GenScript and Thermo Fisher

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Researchers’ choice

Bio-Techne

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Innovative product of the year

ZooMAb Recombinant Antibodies from MilliporeSigma

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Lifetime achievement award

Dr Michael Browning

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Image of the year

Miltenyi Biotec and ChromoTek

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Antibody supplier of the decade

Cell Signaling Technology

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Antibody supplier to watch in 2020

Affinity Biosciences

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ELISA kit supplier to watch in 2020

Cloud-Clone Corp

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Biochemicals supplier to watch in 2020

Solarbio

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ChIP specialist of the year 2020

Diagenode

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Flow cytometer supplier to watch in 2020

ACEA Biosciences

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Mass spectrometer supplier to watch in 2020

Fluidigm

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Antibody supplier succeeding in knockout validation

Abcam

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Antibody supplier succeeding in Alzheimer’s research

Cell Signaling Technology

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