ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Pregnancy and childbirth have a profound and lasting effect on the female body. Reduced length of postnatal hospital stay has impacted the ability of physiotherapy staff to provide early intervention and education on postnatal recovery and rehabilitation. A novel method of providing physiotherapy education to postnatal women was implemented in an attempt to meet consumer needs in the changing hospital environment. A digital health resource was developed and evaluated to determine consumer satisfaction and access. METHODS: Postnatal women admitted to the postnatal ward were invited to participate in a survey of the digital health resource during a 17-day recruitment period. A participant information sheet was provided to the patient and a signed consent form collected from those willing to participate. Online surveys were emailed to women at approximately 2 weeks postnatal and a thematic analysis of the responses was completed. RESULTS: A total of 88 women were recruited to the study during a 17-day recruitment period with a 30% response rate (n=27) to an online survey sent at approximately 2 weeks postpartum. Of the 27 respondents, 33% had watched the digital health resource and were able to provide feedback on resource content, format and length, as well as enablers and barriers to access and viewing habits. Survey responses indicated the resource was viewed only after discharge from hospital and most commonly on a mobile device. Most women engaged with the resource to learn more about their own recovery, and all women found the advice on pelvic floor exercise useful. Lack of time was the most commonly reported barrier to viewing the digital health resource. CONCLUSIONS: This quality assurance project demonstrated the existing digital health resource provides useful information to women following discharge from the postnatal ward but strategies to improve awareness of the resource should be investigated further.
ABSTRACT
Phage display antibody libraries are a rich resource for discovery of potential therapeutic antibodies. Single-chain variable fragment (scFv) libraries are the most common format due to the efficient display of scFv by phage particles and the ease by which soluble scFv antibodies can be expressed for high-throughput screening. Typically, a cascade of screening and triaging activities are performed, beginning with the assessment of large numbers of E. coli-expressed scFv, and progressing through additional assays with individual reformatting of the most promising scFv to full-length IgG. However, use of high-throughput screening of scFv for the discovery of full-length IgG is not ideal because of the differences between these molecules. Furthermore, the reformatting step represents a bottle neck in the process because each antibody has to be handled individually to preserve the unique VH and VL pairing. These problems could be resolved if populations of scFv could be reformatted to full-length IgG before screening without disrupting the variable region pairing. Here, we describe a novel strategy that allows the reformatting of diverse populations of scFv from phage selections to full-length IgG in a batch format. The reformatting process maintains the diversity and variable region pairing with high fidelity, and the resulted IgG pool enables high-throughput expression of IgG in mammalian cells and cell-based functional screening. The improved process led to the discovery of potent candidates that are comparable or better than those obtained by traditional methods. This strategy should also be readily applicable to Fab-based phage libraries. Our approach, Screening in Product Format (SiPF), represents a substantial improvement in the field of antibody discovery using phage display.