Molecular Biology Editing and Proofreading Services

The antibody gives a band at the right size and the paper builds four figures on it. Nobody has shown that the band is the protein. If the antibody also recognises something else at that molecular weight — and a large fraction of commercial antibodies do — then every conclusion downstream is about an unknown, and the experiment that would have caught it takes an afternoon.

We edit what molecular biologists write — experimental papers and methods sections, cloning and construct documentation, antibody and reagent validation, expression and knockdown studies, protein interaction and localisation work, CRISPR and genome editing papers, protocol and repository submissions, and theses, articles and grant applications. Our editors work on the reagents and the evidence that they do what they are said to do.

Reagent validation is the foundation a molecular biology paper stands on, and its failure is a construct or an antibody used without evidence of its identity or specificity. A result obtained with an unvalidated reagent is a result about an unknown quantity. We work through these so antibodies are identified by supplier, catalogue number, lot and RRID and reported with the validation performed in this system, since specificity established in one cell type does not carry to another; so a knockout, knockdown or peptide competition control is shown where the antibody carries a conclusion, because the band disappearing is the evidence and its absence is a gap; so constructs are described with the full sequence of the insert, the vector backbone, the tag and its position, and the verification method, given that a tag on the wrong terminus changes localisation and a silent cloning error changes nothing until it does; so cell lines are named with their source and authentication and their mycoplasma status; so knockdown and editing efficiency are quantified at the protein level rather than assumed from the transcript; so off-target assessment is described for editing and interference experiments; and so a rescue experiment is included where a phenotype is attributed to a specific loss. Papers written this way stand up when others build on them.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including unpublished data, constructs and results before submission. We are editors rather than molecular biologists, and we offer no view on reagents, controls or interpretation. What we can do is make the validation evidence explicit.