The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the nation’s leading medical research agency and the primary Federal agency whose mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge. The mission of the NIH also includes enhancing health, lengthening life, reducing illness and disability, conducting, supporting and making medical discoveries that improves and saves people’s health and lives.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is a part of the NIH, with a mission to catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions.

The Assay Development and Screening Technology (ADST) Laboratory is engaged in various research activities including high-throughput screening and assay development and optimization. This request is for a AKTA Start (FPLC chromatographic instrument) that will allow ADST biochemists, biologists, and trainees to purify/isolate relevant proteins/enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acid materials (DNA/RNA). Enzymes/proteins are biological targets for a host of genetic as well as parasitic infection disease. Isolating these specific enzymes and proteins allow for assay development for large scale screening efforts as well as validation and follow-up analysis on lead molecules and peptides. The AKTA Start will allow for the purification of potential drug targets to produce results that are more biologically relevant.

AKTA Start will allow the purification of proteins/enzymes using various chromatographic columns such as affinity, ion-exchange, size exclusion, etc. It will help ADST biochemists, biologists, and trainees to develop and optimize new assays. Therefore, this FPLC will serve a critical role in the molecular and biochemical workflow already being developed and implemented in the ADST laboratory.

The AKTA Start Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) instrument with fraction collector will be used to purify the proteins, enzymes, and antibodies. These are critical components for pre-clinical drug discovery, assay development and high-throughput screening. AKTA Start is compatible with the affinity, ion-exchange, size exclusion and all other column types. ADTST and NCATS have AKTA FPLC systems and AKTA Start runs on the same controlling software. AKTA Start will accommodate the current and future need of ADST biochemists, biologists, and trainees to purify the required proteins and enzymes.