addgene.org

What it is

Addgene.org is a world-renowned non-profit sharing platform for biological research reagents. Founded over 20 years ago, its core mission is to facilitate the sharing of research materials in life sciences and lower the barrier for researchers worldwide to access reagents. To date, the platform hosts over 170,000 plasmids, more than 1,000 ready-to-ship viral vectors, and hundreds of recombinant antibodies deposited by nearly 7,000 laboratories across the globe. It has fulfilled more than 2.4 million orders, serving research institutions in 113 countries worldwide.

Core Features & Pricing

Addgene's core business falls into three categories:

1. Plasmid distribution: It provides storage, quality control, and shipping services for plasmids deposited by laboratories around the world for researchers.
2. Viral vector services: It offers over 1,000 ready-to-use pre-made AAV and lentivirus products, and also supports custom packaging services. Customers can select from more than 5,000 qualified plasmids, with 9 different serotypes available for customization. The production lead time is approximately 6 to 8 weeks.
3. Research tools and resource services: It provides BLAST-based plasmid sequence searching, and also hosts a large number of free protocols, tutorials, and technical blogs, as well as a community-shared experimental result data center.

Pricing is tiered based on reagent specifications. All custom viral services are offered as all-inclusive pricing, which already covers the MTA process, DNA amplification, production and purification, and full quality control. Exact prices are listed on the detail page of each corresponding reagent.

User Experience & Target Users

Overall, Addgene is an irreplaceable public resource for life science research. It solves the pain points of non-standard reagent distribution and unguaranteed quality between laboratories, and greatly improves the efficiency of global research. Its downsides are that the website only supports English, and orders placed in mainland China require international cold chain logistics, which leads to longer shipping times; the total delivery lead time for custom viruses can reach up to 10 weeks.

This website is an excellent fit for all researchers and laboratories working in life science fields such as molecular biology and neuroscience. Research groups in China can directly access the website to search for and order the reagents they need.