This application is to acquire an BD FACS Melody Cell Sorting System (BD Biosciences) on behalf of the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS) to support researchers at Mission Bay campus to conduct cell sorting in their researches funded by VA and other federal and non-federal funding sources. SFVAHCS Mission Bay (MB) campus is the research home for over 20 investigators at SFVAHCS. Cell biology is common research area for those researchers. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) is essential equipment for cell isolation, which has becoming a routine experiment for many investigators at SFVAHCS-MB campus. However, there is no FACS cell sorter available on this site. Long distance between MB and Ft. Miley main campuses of SFVAHCS makes it unrealistic for investigators at MB to use FACS at Ft. Miley campus. Although nearby UCSF FACS core is open to VA researchers, that facility is serving hundreds of UCSF users with very busy schedule. Many of our experiments were cancelled or delayed due to the unavailability of UCSF FACS facility, resulting in wasting of many valuable samples. This new BD FACS Melody Cell Sorting System homed at SFVAHCS MB campus will support 11 VA investigators at MB campus with 7 active VA funded projects and 8 more NIH and DoD projects initially, facilitating and accelerating their research to improve VA health care.
The goal of this application is to attain a critical equipment of BD FACS Melody Cell Sorting in supporting investigators at SFVA Mission Bay campus for musculoskeletal disease researches. This new BD FACS Melody Cell Sorting System homed at SFVAHCS MB campus will support multiple VA investigators by facilitating and accelerating their research to improve VA health care, thus benefits our VA patients eventually.
