Development and Testing of the Relational and Structural Components of Innovativeness Across Academia and Practice for Healthcare Progress Scale.

Objective: Using data from 5 academic-practice sites across the United States, researchers developed and validated a scale to measure conditions that enable healthcare innovations.

Background: Academic-practice partnerships are a catalyst for innovation and healthcare development. However, limited theoretically grounded evidence exists to provide strategic direction for healthcare innovation across practice and academia.

Atomic force microscopy analysis of the Huntington protein nanofibril formation.

Background: Huntington's disease is an autosomal dominant progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with dramatic expansion of a polyglutamine sequence in exon 1 of the huntingtin protein htt that leads to cytoplasmic, and even nuclear aggregation of fibrils.

Methods: We have studied the in vitro fibril formation of mutant exon 1, and the shorter wild-type exon 1, with use of atomic force microscopy (AFM).

Results: Large aggregates are formed spontaneously after cleavage of the glutathione-S-transferase fusion protein of the mutant exon 1 protein.

Development of a human light chain variable domain (V(L)) intracellular antibody specific for the amino terminus of huntingtin via yeast surface display.

Intracellular antibodies (intrabodies) provide an attractive means for manipulating intracellular protein function, both for research and potentially for therapy. A challenge in the isolation of effective intrabodies is the ability to find molecules that exhibit sufficient binding affinity and stability when expressed in the reducing environment of the cytoplasm. Here, we have used yeast surface display of proteins to isolate novel scFv clones against huntingtin from a non-immune human antibody library.