We lately had an interesting target for a mass-spec screen we wanted to follow and found out the THE experts for this protein sit right next door. We had a meeting, they told us everything they do, they have a knockout mouse (yes!) and a good antibody (double yes!) that we could use. We went back to the lab and tested the antibody on our tissue of interest, no signal... Lets test the antibody on kidney tissue, it has been published that it is expressed there. We see a signal! It is different than what was described, but it is a staining. Lets check in the knockout mouse, just to make sure. We see the same signal as in the wildtype. We test a few more tissues. Nope. Their antibody that they rely on for every staining they are doing is unspecific, sticks to everything that has a calcium-dependent lipid binding site and they never thought about making sure it is specific in their knockout animals that they had for yearssssss. WTF? We learned our lesson. Every antibody is tested and then confirmed with an in-situ to see colocalization before we trust it. thundara congrats on seeing the thing you wanted to see :)
Jesus. Well a least you had all of the resources on hand to invalidate the antibody ;-) Coincidentally, the department's new hire who is the door over from my adviser worked on <thing I'd been looking for>. I'm on the fence as to whether I want him or a more neuro-y person evaluating my work (or both???).
I think that having two different views on your matter of interest is very nice! They tend to give you very different but useful insight on how to tackle your problem. Had a similar thought about who to take for my thesis advisory committee. I wanted to add someone who is not in neuro, but my boss doesn't think it is useful. Maybe for next year :D