Cite Antibody Lifetime Achievement Award

In a career spanning four decades, Dr. Browning has served the cause of scientific discovery as an exemplary neuroscientist, mentor, and business leader.

We’re thrilled to announce that Dr. Michael Browning, founder and CEO of PhosphoSolutions, has been named winner of the prestigious CiteAb Lifetime Achievement Award 2020.

Cite Ab award

The award highlights an outstanding individual who has made a significant impact in the reagent sector.

In a career spanning four decades, Dr. Browning has served the cause of scientific discovery as an exemplary neuroscientist, mentor, and business leader.

His unimpeachable integrity and dedication to scientific rigor has inspired countless grad students, post docs and employees and set a standard of excellence in the reagent industry.

A passion for antibodies has been a hallmark of his career in both academia and industry.

Dr. Browning’s mission to contribute reliable antibodies to the research community began during his post doc years in Nobel Laureate Dr. Paul Greengard’s lab at Yale in the 1980s. Studying the critical roles synapsin proteins play in synaptic function, he saw first-hand the connection between antibody quality and outstanding research outcomes.

Mike in Phospho's Lab

As a professor at the University of Colorado in the Pharmacology and Neuroscience departments, Dr. Browning developed antibodies to proteins involved in LTP, widely regarded as the key cellular mechanism underlying learning and memory.

In the early 1990s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA recognized Dr. Browning’s understanding of antibodies as research tools and awarded him a grant to develop additional novel antibodies. Numerous subsequent publications cited his home-grown antibodies, and the NIH urged him to commercialize his work – resulting in the development of PhosphoSolutions.

Dr. Browning was one of the first to address concerns about antibody reproducibility.

He has long been a proponent of polyclonal antibodies owing to their versatility and robustness. He was an industry leader in advocating reagent reproducibility well before there was a ‘reproducibility crisis’. At his direction in 2006, PhosphoSolutions instituted a unique-in-the-industry serum pooling initiative by which antibodies are released only when a large supply of serum had been amassed, positively screened and then pooled. This practice guarantees a 20-year supply of a given antibody purified from homogenous starting material with virtually no lot-to-lot variability.

Recognizing Dr. Browning’s leadership in reproducibility, GBSI invited him to attend its landmark 2016 Antibody Validation workshop, where Dr. Browning called for antibody manufacturers to adopt serum pooling and improve and standardize internal validation.

After his retirement, Dr. Browning's company continues to thrive.

In September 2019, Dr. Browning joined PhosphoSolutions with Antibodies Incorporated and Aves Labs to form a family of small manufacturers providing reagents that researchers can rely on.

Dr. Browning has a wife and two grown sons. In his spare time he enjoys golf and spending time with his family.

Dr. Andrew Chalmers, founder of CiteAb, said: “I wish to offer my personal congratulations to Dr. Michael Browning on winning the CiteAb Lifetime Achievement Award. Anyone who has met him couldn’t fail to be impressed by his enthusiasm and dedication to improving antibodies for the research community. This is a well-deserved award following a remarkable career. Many congratulations to Dr. Browning from me and the whole CiteAb team.”

See all of the year’s winners on CiteAb.com!

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