The objective of the Histology Core Facility at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is to provide high quality instrumentation, sample preparation and training in a wide spectrum of fundamental and advanced histological techniques to COBRE research investigators. The Histology Core Facility will be located in the first level of the new UND SMHS Building adjacent to the established Imaging Core which consists of the multiphoton, confocal, intravital imaging, fluorescent, TIRF and electron microscopy suites. The Histology facility will be critical to the completion of the proposed scientific projects from the five junior investigators. Furthermore, the Histology core will allow junior investigators to access the equipment and technical expertise to prepare samples for a wide variety of high resolution imaging techniques. The Core Director and technical staff will provide all project investigators and their students/staff assistance in experimental design, sample preparations for specific types of morphological analyses, and selection of the appropriate levels of imaging resolution. Additionally, the core will provide investigators and their trainees with comprehensive training in a wide variety of sample preparation techniques and analysis across a spectrum of tissue-specific applications. To maximize the impact of the NIH investment in biomedical research within North Dakota, the Histology Core Facility will provide access and support to other investigators, within the UND SMHS UND researchers who are not part of the medical school, and researchers from other North Dakota universities such as North Dakota State University, tribal colleges through INBRE, and other research institutions such as USDA-Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center; however, a fee-for-service approach will be applied to investigators outside this COBRE, and these fees will help to sustain this center.
Currently, there is no established histology facility available to COBRE investigators at the UND SMHS. This limitation has negatively impacted ongoing research activities for the proposed COBRE investigators and for the other members of the UND SMHS faculty. Therefore the Histology Core Facility will: 1) Provide training and instruction to COBRE project directors, their students and staff in all aspects of instrument use, safety, outcome-specific forms of tissue sample preparation and provide assistance with trouble shooting all aspects of tissue preparation and analysis. 2) Assist with experimental design specifically with regards to application-specific sample preparation techniques, identifying appropriate analytical tools available, resolution restrictions and quantitative morphological techniques. 3) Provide a fee-for-service assistance with tissue sample preparation, microtomy and all aspects of general histochemical and antigen-specific immunohistochemical detection.
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