The University of Florida contributes substantially to the local and regional economy. In 2008, UF created 2,525 jobs and recent studies have shown that UF contributes nearly $6 billion annually to Florida's economy. The university employs about 34,000 people directly on its main campus and via UF organizations, such as the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, is responsible for the creation of 74,894 jobs statewide. The current proposal will create or retain 3 jobs. We request $500,000 to purchase a pyrosequencing-based DNA sequencing instrument that will enable the UF Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research (ICBR) core facilities to support increasing demand by NIH-funded investigators. Currently, UF owns and operates one pyrosequencing instrument;purchased in 2005 that provides massively parallel DNA sequencing services to UF as well as other state and non-profit entities. The ICBR pyrosequencer is currently the only such instrument available in Florida. Over a period of nearly four years, we demonstrate dramatic growth in demand for pyrosequencing services. Now, our very success is in danger of saturating our pyrosequencing capacity. Acquisition of a second pyrosequencer aims to ensure NIH-funded investigators have ready access to this crucial technology. The potential health-related impact of their NIH-funded research projects is a reflection of the breadth of biomedical research disciplines represented by our major users. Their projects range from discovering biomarkers for environmental contaminants in our waters and streams, understanding immunodeficiency virus variation during disease progression, and the role viral and host genome variation plays in disease transmission, and the comparative metagenomics of the microbiome in human infants at risk for necrotizing enterocolitis. In between are projects for understanding the role of chronic mycoplasma infection in prostate cancer, comparative pharmacogenomics of antihypertensive therapy, discovery of factors promoting transcriptional activation in chromatin, gene expression profiling in single neurons, and the role of miRNA in latent viral infections and how this contributes to viral persistence and pathogenesis in cancers. The impact of supported NIH research projects will be felt in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. The State of Florida and the University of Florida have demonstrated a commitment to operation of this instrument through continuous salary support for technical staff, acquisition of all ancillary instruments, as well as exhibiting significant commitments to computational hardware infrastructure and bioinformatics personnel.
