Dr. Stöhr's research will focus on the solubilization of native PrPSc. The generation of uniformly solubilized PrPSc may allow us to determine the smallest infectious unit of prions and might provide the first step for crystallizing the infectious isoform. Different biophysical methods will be applied for characterizing solubilized PrPSc, e.g. centrifugation methods, electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering and various spectroscopic methods.
