The CiteAb Innovation Award highlights an innovative product that has satisfied a gap in the market or solved a known issue within the respective field.

Many congratulations to Cell Signaling Technology, with their win in this category for their anti-CAR linker antibodies.

Yet again, we received many extremely strong nominations in this category and multiple products scored highly. The judges remarked on the quality of products entered and the difficulty in selecting one winner! After totalling each judge's scores, Cell Signaling Technology pulled ahead.

Their innovative new product has the potential to have far-reaching impact on cancer patients, helping in the development and optimisation of new treatments.

CAR-T therapy is an exciting new avenue in cancer treatment, where the patient's own immune cells are used against their tumour. However, to ensure the effectiveness of treatment, detection reagents must be developed to monitor CAR surface expression.

Cell Signaling Technology have introduced a product that can recognise many CAR-T cells: anti-CAR linker antibodies. This provides a solution to the lengthy and expensive process of developing specific antibodies to target individual CAR surface receptors, as these antibodies target the linker sequence between the heavy and light chain variable regions of the scFv meaning they can identify many receptors. These reagents can also be easily incorporated into flow panels, and are validated.

Dr Andrew Chalmers, CEO and founder of CiteAb said "We are thrilled to award Cell Signaling Technology with the Innovation Award for this product. Anti-CAR linker antibodies have the potential to create a really positive impact in cancer research. We were really excited to learn more about how the product has offered a solution to challenges in this field."

The judges: