FAQs
1. Who is Randox Life Sciences?
Randox Life Sciences is a division of Randox Laboratories that has been developing and manufacturing a wide variety of antibodies, conjugates and human recombinant proteins for nearly 30 years. A selection of our antibodies and proteins are used in the development and manufacture of the Randox diagnostic products including the patented Biochip Array Technology and our ELISA kit products.
2. What products do you offer?
Randox Life Sciences develops and manufactures a wide range of products which includes:
- High quality antibodies and conjugates targeting drugs of abuse, steroids, hormones and biochemical markers.
- Extensive list of human recombinant proteins including cytokines, growth factors, chemokines, adhesion molecules and tumour markers. .
- Newly released Recombinant Antibody Fragments
3. What is your lead time?
All of our products are manufactured and stocked at Randox manufacturing facility in the UK. With our worldwide courier service your order will be delivered within the 10 business days.
4. How do you practice quality control?
Randox are committed to quality at every stage of the production process from research and development to customer support. This commitment has been recognised through official accreditation to both national and international standards including UKAS and ISO. Accreditation to international standards ensures confidence in the quality and consistency of the products and services provided by Randox and demonstrates compliance to internationally agreed standards.
5. What customer services and support do you offer?
Randox Life Sciences is fully committed to the support of our customers to ensure that they receive the finest service and assistance for all available products. When you purchase products from Randox Life Sciences, you will receive the services and support from our technical support department.
We can be contacted by:
Tel: +44 (0) 28 9442 2413,
Fax: +44 (0) 28 9445 2912,
E-Mail: lifesciences@randox.com
How to order
6. How can I order products from Randox Life Sciences?
Placing orders with Randox Life Sciences is simple and can be done in a number of ways:
- Credit Card using our secure Sage online shopping cart.
- Purchase Order (PO): FAX: +44 (0) 28 9445 2912 (International)
+ 1 304 728 1890 (USA only)
EMAIL: lifesciences@randox.com
- Telephone: International +44 (0) 28 9442 2413
USA + 1 304 728 2890
Please see http://www.randox-lifesciences.com/HowToOrder for further detailed instruction.
7. What are the advantages of buying online?
- Discount - 10% discount for all online orders
- Speed
- Direct contact:
If there are any problems with your order we can contact you directly to keep you informed, so that you can plan your experiments.
- Fast and easy re-ordering:
Your details are stored for future purchases.
8. Can I get discount?
Discount can be discussed on a case to case basis for specific orders such as bulk or subsequent orders. 10% discount is provided when you order online. Please contact us for further information.
9. Is the information in the datasheet up to date and correct?
The information on the datasheets supplied on the website contains our typical concentration which may change slightly from batch to batch. However, we endeavour to update the concentration as soon as possible after the batch has been released. A certificate of analysis will also be supplied with your order, which will contain the exact concentration of product purchased.
10. Do you have a distributor in my country?
We have an extensive network of worldwide distributors in countries which we don't have direct representation. To retrieve ordering information specific to your country, please contact us.
11. What pack sizes does your product come in?
Our polyclonal antibodies are available in 100µl and 1ml pack sizes.
Our monoclonal antibodies are available in 100µg and 1mg pack sizes.
Our recombinant proteins in 10µg, 100µg and 1mg pack sizes.
Our conjugates are available in 0.5ml pack sizes
Our antibody fragments are available in 10µg, 100µg and 1mg pack sizes.
12. Do you charge VAT?
Our prices are exclusive of VAT and VAT only applies to customers in the European Union (EU).
- UK Customers - VAT is charges unless your organisation is VAT exempt in which case a copy of your exemption certificate must be provided.
- EU customers outside the UK - VAT is charged unless you provide us with your VAT number at the time of ordering.
13. Can I have a pro-forma invoice?
We are happy to provide pro-forma invoices once the order has been placed on Lifesciences@randox.com or we received your purchase order.
14. Where do you ship?
We have vast experience in shipping to any country in the world by courier. To see what countries we ship to please click here
15. How will I know if my order has been received by Randox Life Sciences?
Our dedicated logistics department will immediately contact our customers on receipt of orders by email. Further contact by email is performed once all orders are dispatched to ensure our customers are kept up to date at all times.
Antibodies
16. What are your best selling antibody products?
Our best selling antibody products include
17. What are the main advantages of your antibodies?
There are many advantages to using our antibodies
• All polyclonal antibodies are developed and manufactured by Randox Life Sciences and we can therefore provide excellent after sales and technical support
• Nearly 30 Years experience in the creation and use of antibody products
• Excellent Quality and polyclonal antibodies are manufactured at our ISO 13485 certified manufacturing plant
• Sensitivity
• Full cross reactivity profiles provided
• High Concentrations (Ig and Working Conc) provided
• Reproducibility
• Bulk Supply
• Custom manufacture of polyclonal antibodies.
• Corresponding Antigens and Antigen HRP for Immunoassay development available
• Stability when stored @ -20°C for up to 2 years
18. What applications are your antibodies suitable for use with?
Our antibodies are suitable for use with most regularly used laboratory immuno-applications including:
• Western Blot analysis
• ELISA
• Dot blot analysis
• Functionality testing
• Flow cytometry
• Antibody recognition assays
• Immunohistochemistry
• Immunoprecipitiation
19. What is your antibody concentration?
All of the Randox Life Science antibodies are supplied in high concentrations with low working concentrations. These features allow our antibodies to be used in numerous applications with great sensitivity.
20. What pack sizes are available?
Our polyclonal antibodies are available in 100µl and 1ml pack sizes while monoclonal antibodies are available in 100µg and 1mg pack sizes. Bulk orders can be discussed with us on a case to case basis by contacting Lifesciences@randox.com
21. Are you able to provide the immunogen sequence for this antibody?
We can supply the immunogen/BSA-conjugate, but this is discussed on a case to case basis.
22. What assays are used to validate the effectiveness of the antibody?
Product Evaluation NMR, UV spectrometry, HPLC, ELISA
23. Do you provide antibody customisation services?
Yes we provide polyclonal antibody customisation services.
24. What are your best selling protein products?
Our top selling proteins are
25. What are the main advantages of your proteins?
• Carrier free format, presented in 50% glycerol buffered with saline/ Tris
• In solution and ready to use
• >95% purity - gel images provided
• Protein evaluation (PAGE, Bradford, Silver staining, Western blot analysis, ELISA )
• Western blot controls available
• Different pack sizes available 10 µg, 100 µg and 1mg
• Suitable for storage at -20oC
• Bulk quantities, with the ability to lyophilise material
• Rigorous QC prior to dispatch
• Used in RandoxQC manufacturing in bulk quantities e.g PCT, prolactin, NSE, NGAL, IL-1a etc.
26. What is the purity of your proteins?
The purity of our proteins is always >95%
27. How are your proteins evaluated?
PAGE
Bradford,
Silver staining
Western blot analysis
ELISA
28. What pack sizes are available?
Our proteins are available in 10µg, 100µg and 1mg pack sizes. Bulk orders can be discussed with us on a case to case basis by contacting Lifesciences@randox.com
29. What applications are your proteins suitable for use with?
Our proteins are suitable for use with:
• Western Blot analysis
• ELISA
• Dot blot analysis
• Cell based assays
• Functionality testing
• Flow cytometry
• Antibody recognition assays
• Immunohistochemistry
• Immunoprecipitiation
30. What does your protein expression customisation services include?
Our protein expression services include:
• Bioinformatic analysis and domain selection
• Subclone plasmid / construct expression vectors
• Sequence analysis and verification
• Bacterial cell transformation and clone preparation
• Protein expression and purification
• Optimisation of expression and purification conditions
• Quality control report
• Scale-up production
• Protein characterisation
• Protein lyophilisation - optimsation required - only for large orders
Recombinant Antibody Fragments
31. What are antibody fragments?
Single Chain Fv's (scFvs) are recombinant antibody fragments, which commonly consist of a full variable (epitope-binding) region of an immunoglobulin heavy chain covalently linked to the corresponding variable region of an immunoglobulin light chain. These regions are usually expressed as a single continuous sequence, which may or may not be separated by a short linking amino acid sequence.
32. What are the main advantages of using these antibody fragments?
Main advantages of the scFv fragment:
• It is essentially a minimal version of an IgG molecule. Despite its reduced size, the fragment still retains its full activity , specificity and stability.
• When used on ELISA, immuno-bead or biochip surfaces the reduced size of the scFv fragment allows for more densely packed coating of the fragment's binding regions (CDRs) thus giving higher potential assay sensitivities.
• Due to the removal of the entire immunoglobulin Fc region there is reduced likelihood of observing interference from secondary antibodies or from the phenomenon of Human Anti-Mouse Antibody (HAMA) interference.
33. How does Randox Life Sciences manufacture these products?
• Single chain Fv fragments are artificially engineered sequences, which are commonly expressed in secondary hosts such as E.Coli, yeast or Chinese Hamster Ovarian (CHO) cells.
• The chains can be easily adapted and altered for use in specialised applications.
• Randox Life Sciences have pioneered the use of specialised proprietary functional expression tags which are designed to aid directed immobilisation and conjugation of scFv fragments for use as capture and detection ligands in biochip-based assays.
• ScFv fragments can also be processed through rounds of affinity maturation to increase their functional sensitivities and can be expressed in higher valency formats as dimeric, trimeric and even tetrameric fragments in order to increase their functional avidity.