Tecan and the Monash Antibody Technologies Facility unveil the world’s largest custom monoclonal antibody production facility

The new Monash Antibody Technologies Facility (MATF) was officially opened on August 6th 2008 at a ceremony attended by a number of important dignitaries from the Australian government, academia and the life science industry. The newly refurbished, two hundred square meter facility houses cutting-edge equipment, including 10 Freedom EVO^® liquid handling workstations from Tecan, a global leader in laboratory automation and detection, and boasts impressive capabilities for high throughput production of custom-made, high-affinity monoclonal antibodies.

Michael Spiegel, deputy director of MATF, said: “In just one year, and with Tecan’s support, we have renovated a whole new space, brought in state-of-the-art, fully automated systems and have them already producing antibodies. This is now the largest capacity and probably the most sophisticated and technologically advanced custom antibody facility in the world. We already have 50 academic projects in the pipeline and we are members of the structural genomic consortium, an international pilot project for creating binding agents to all human proteins and protein binders.“

Alan Sawyer, Director of the facility, added: “We are finalizing several prestigious deals with companies and researchers from around the world, concerning the development of anywhere between two hundred and five hundred antibodies per year. This is truly an international facility.”

MATF, which is partially funded by the Victorian State Government, Monash University and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, is a major step towards an extensive 2008 development program which further strengthens Monash University’s rising profile as a centre of excellence in the international medical research community. Gavin Jennings, the Victorian government minister for Innovation and Environment cut the ceremonial ribbon at the opening ceremony, and guests included Kim Carr, the federal minister for innovation, the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research at Monash University and Carl Severinghaus, Tecan’s Senior Vice President.