Burnette gave the technique the name among other modifications and was very instrumental in popularizing western blotting. Towbin's group developed what appears to be the most common method, including the electrophoretic transfer method and buffers, as well as the use of secondary antibodies. So, who actually invented the western blot and should be given credit for it? was taking up all my time by talking on the phone.' (Ref 9). I was talking to everyone.because they couldn't read the Xeroxed copy they had. 'Pretty soon, I was running a daily seminar on blotting by telephone. His procedure was finally published in 1981 after it had already become famous through distribution of pre-prints to friends, who repeated the process (Ref 9). Interestingly, Burnette reports that his submission in 1979 was 'dismissed - not on the basis of the Towbin publication but because the technique was transparently obvious, made no fundamental contribution to the scientific literature, and, most damning, had been given the flippant name of 'Western blotting' in honor, of course, of Edwin Southern and of the West Coast location of its invention.' (Ref 8). He also said his method 'simplified antigen transfer, antibody detection, and complex visualization' (Ref 8). He mentions using 'unmodified nitrocellulose, radiolabeled Protein A detection, and 2-D separations' as advantages (Ref 7). He still believed his version was simpler and more universal, thus worthy of publication (Ref 7). He developed his technique independently, including the electrophoretic transfer step, but became aware of Stark's and Towbin's publications before he submitted his in 1979. Burnette definitely gave the technique the name 'Western blotting' as a nod to Southern blotting and because their lab was on the west coast. Neal Burnette, working in Robert Nowinski's lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, submitted in 1979, but it was rejected, then eventually published in 1981 (Ref 6). Their procedure also used secondary antibodies for detection thus, this appears to the actual method that is generally followed for westerns. They developed the method of electrophoretic transfer of proteins to membranes (instead of passive transfer like Stark) and the now-ubiquitous immunoblotting sandwich using electric current to transfer proteins from the SDS-PAGE gel to the membrane (Ref 5). Harry Towbin's group in Basel, Switzerland, including Towbin & Julian Gordon (at Friedrich Miescher Institut) and Theophil Staehelin (at Hoffmann-La Roche), submitted in June 1979 and was published in September 1979 (Ref 4). They used passive transfer of the proteins, then 125-I-labeled Protein A for detection. George Stark's group at Stanford University, including Jaime Renart & Jakob Reiser, published first (Ref 3), submitting in April 1979 and published in July 1979. But who should we cite as the real inventor? This question is not as easy to answer, but it is a very interesting story. They all attempted to publish in 1979 and certainly all deserve some credit for the development of the western blot. Most researchers know western blotting evolved from Southern blotting (Ref 1), invented by Edwin Southern at University of Edinburgh in 1975, then northern blotting (Ref 2), invented by George Stark's Stanford group in 1977.Īll 3 groups of researchers in Seattle, Stanford, and Basel seem to have been working independently from 1977 to 1979 on a better method to detect proteins using antibodies. They were all working hard and trying to publish. Was it George Stark's group (at Stanford)?ġ979 certainly was a busy year in the development of western blotting (also called 'Protein blotting' or 'Protein immunoblot').

Was it Harry Towbin's group (in Switzerland)? Was it Neal Burnette (at Fred Hutchinson)? Learn the actual story behind the western blotting technique Do you know who invented the Western blot?

Immunoblotting vs western blot