Scientist Stories: Dr Clarisse Brunet on Reliable Antibodies for Studying Human Cortical Development

How Dr Clarisse Brunet uses Proteintech antibodies to achieve reliable, reproducible cell fate analysis in human neurodevelopment research.

This story is part of a series, #InTheLabWithProteintech highlighting how Proteintech reagents have supported researchers in advancing their work.

Clarisse Brunet, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Institut Curie, shares how Proteintech antibodies helped overcome challenges with specificity and batch‑to‑batch variability, enabling robust identification of cell‑fate markers during human cortical development studies.

How did you first come across Proteintech reagents? What made you try them?

"During the early stages of my postdoctoral research, I needed to identify reliable and high-performing antibodies to assess cell fate for my project. While searching online, I came across the Proteintech website and was pleasantly surprised to find the option of purchasing small aliquots at a reasonable price. This allowed me to test a broad range of antibodies efficiently and select the ones that performed best for my experiments."

Which Proteintech products have you used in your work?

“Since then, I have used a wide range of Proteintech products, from primary antibodies to cytokines, as well as secondary nanobodies and the FlexAble technology. However, I have to admit that primary antibodies remain the main products I rely on in my work."

Find out more about Proteintech antibodies for neuroscience. 

How have Proteintech antibodies impacted your research? 

"Proteintech antibodies have truly been a game changer in my research. I immediately noticed their strong performance across different assays, and the extensive antibody library has made experimental planning much simpler.

Before using Proteintech, I often faced issues with competitor antibodies that showed low yield, poor specificity, and significant batch-to-batch variability. These problems negatively affected my work, as I frequently had to repeat experiments to confirm results, which delayed my research progress."

Can you share a specific story, result, discovery, or milestone that was made possible with Proteintech products?

"During our investigation of human cortical development, we aimed to validate HOPX as a marker of radial glial cells. Previous commercial antibodies did not recognize the transcriptomically defined HOPX-positive population. The Proteintech antibody, however, provided specific and reproducible labeling, which allowed us to validate the marker and expand our characterization of these cells."

What impact did this have on your wider research goals or on your lab’s progress?

"This really showed us how well Proteintech antibodies are validated. They’re reliable and trustworthy, which gives us confidence in our results. We also had great exchanges with the technical support and sales teams, who were always helpful and provided valuable insights for our experiments."

Have you been able to publish any research using Proteintech reagents?

"Yes, we published last year the following article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-024-01393-z"

If you were to recommend Proteintech products to another researcher, what would you tell them?

"I would definitely encourage other researchers to try Proteintech products. One of the great advantages is the option to purchase small-scale versions, which makes it easy to test and identify the best reagents for your experiments before committing to larger quantities. And if you ever have any doubts, I highly recommend reaching out to their team. They’re always knowledgeable, and ready to offer helpful advice and solutions."

Clarisse Brunet, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher at Institut Curie

Sample of a human fetal cortex (GW15), stained with anti-HOPX.