WG4 is going to conduct a benchmarking study on microscale thermophoresis (MST) aiming to test its reproducibility and reliability, especially as MST is a rather new technique. In order to maximize the outcome of this study we need your support by participating (max. number of participants: 40)! You can participate if you have access to a NanoTemper Monolith NT.115 with red filter or a Monolith Pico instrument. We plan to publish the results from this benchmarking study and every participant will be coauthor!

Overall, three samples will be measured: two samples to measure interaction and one sample to measure the absolute performance of several instrument parameters. The two standard systems for interaction are a well-established protein:small molecule system (lysozyme:3NAG) and a new standard system developed in Tom Jowitt’s lab involving protein:protein interaction (lysozyme:nanobody).

Samples are prelabeled and each sample should be measured in triplicates according to an SOP provided (estimated time for preparation / measurement: 4-5 hours. In addition, all participants shall analyse the interaction measurements as they usually do (estimated time: 2-3 hours). Overall, 1-2 days will be needed for all measurements and data analysis. The samples will be shipped together with capillaries. The costs for shipping and consumables will be covered by NanoTemper, who will also participate in the study. The results for each of the instruments will be anonymised, so no personal data will be attributed to the measurements, and data will be analysed centrally using different softwares, evaluating the influence of different algorithms/softwares.

More details about the benchmark will be sent out to the participants in September 2018. We plan to send the samples for the MST benchmark in October 2018. Once you received the samples you have up to four weeks to measure them, so please consider this in you time plan.

If you also have access to an ITC instrument (preferentially one with a cell volume <300µl) we would be happy to send you additional samples to complement the MST measurements by ITC (estimated time: 1 day). You can indicate instrument availability and your willingness to do also ITC measurements during registration.

The study will start in October 2018 and registration is open from now until September, 30^th 2018. Please register via this link (registration is only possible with an ARBRE-MOBIEU account in the internal area).

Responsible people: Bruno Baron, Robert Gilbert, Tom Jowitt, Stefan Knauer, Blanca Lopez-Mendez, Arthur Sedivy, Stephan Uebel

For any questions, please contact Arthur Sedivy (arthur.sedivy@vbcf.ac.at).