TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH GROUP CORE 009 ? FLOW CYTOMETRY SHARED RESOURCE PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Flow Cytometry Shared Resource (FCSR) offers a variety of cell-based research services, principally analytical and sorting flow cytometry. The instrumentation necessary for high-speed cell analysis and sorting is expensive and requires a high level of technical expertise; therefore, this equipment is best situated in a shared resource. The FCSR provides for the maintenance of the instrumentation, operation of the resource and training and consultation in the use of flow cytometry in experimental work. The staff offers guidance and training to faculty, staff, professional trainees and students in the entire range of skills needed to utilize flow cytometry, including experiment design, sample preparation and staining, data acquisition, post-acquisition analysis and sorting. The staff organizes regular training sessions for investigators, given by visiting technical specialists or by the staff themselves. The FCSR provides materials related to investigators' data and approaches that can support the feasibility of experiments for grant applications, and provides publication quality representations of primary data when needed. Because the personnel and directors of the FCSR have been active in development of new techniques in flow cytometry, they have relationships with corporations for the development of new techniques in fluorescence detection and instrumentation and with other investigators for novel bioinformatics approaches. This unique feature facilitates rapid adoption of new protocols and techniques. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) provides oversight for the FCSR to review staff performance, policies, billing and budget status, personnel issues, protocols and procedures, quality assurance and quality control, and developmental studies. The FCSR?s major goals are to continue to expand the usage of multi-color flow cytometry, continue to maintain low costs and work closely with VICC investigators to further develop mass cytometry to probe signaling pathways and for other applications employing 20-50 antibodies at one time.
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