Prof. James (Jim) Heath, Caltech is providing expertise in designing more stable antibodies

Professor James (Jim) Heath leads a laboratory where one group’s research is in the area of solid-state quantum physics, materials science, and basic surface science, while another group focuses on fundamental biology and translational medicine. On the biology and translational medical side, Heath's group has developed a number of microchip based platforms for highly multiplex analysis of functional proteins from single cells and blood, with specific applications to immune monitoring and tissue analysis, and with a medical focus on oncology. His group also has expertise in creating artificial antibodies that share the high affinity and selectivity of monoclonal antibodies, but maintain the stability of short peptides. They are developing chemistries for targeting these peptides at specific protein epitopes. The superior stability of these capture agents has possible advantages in diagnostic applications for immunoassays, as well as in vivo (imaging and therapeutic) applications. This could potentially be of interest to organizations like PATH and IDRI working on diagnostics especially antibody diagnostics. This might enable the diagnostic to be more stable for developing world applications. So it would be that organizations would know there is a resource or a person with expertise in developing more stable antibodies and could approach to see if there is interest in a collaboration or just sharing of know how.