The core consists of three components, each of which serves all projects within the Program: administrative support, engineering support and research technical support. The administrative component consists of the Program Director and the Unit Manager of the Eaton-Peabody Lab. They handle all fiscal matters concerning the MEEI, the subcontract organizations and the NIDCD. The Unit Manager assists the Program Director and the Project Pis in budget tracking and planning on a regular basis. The research technical support component is led by a Lab Manager and comprises a total of 2.0 FTEs made up of partial support for six Research Technologists. Together, this group provides all the technical support for the Projects, including histological preparation, animal surgery, subject scheduling, ordering of supplies, computerized figure making, photographic printing, etc. In many cases, the Research Technologists also assist in the data acquisition, data analysis and manuscript preparation as well. Each Research Technologist will typically assist on several Project, according to his/her particular areas of expertise and the needs of each Project at any particular point in time. The engineering support component is led by a Chief Engineer and comprises a total of 2.2. FTEs. Made up of partial support for four Engineers. The team of engineers, as a group, is responsible for design, assembly and maintenance of all the hardware and software needs for the Program. These needs arise in a number of areas: 1) in the experimental facilities for physiological measurements, each of which is equipped with a computer-controlled system for stimulus delivery, data acquisition, online processing and storage, 2) in the labwide network of workstations (both online and offline facilities) including large file-serves for offline data storage, and 3) in the facilities for computer-aided anatomy involving 2-D morphometry and 3-D reconstructions. The existence of such an experienced engineering group allows the Program Investigators the freedom to concentrate their efforts on the science rather than the instrumentation and the flexibility to customize the instrumentation to the scientific questions at hand, rather than to tailor the science to the capabilities of commercially available products.
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