(Taken from the application) All the services to be provided by the Intestinal Microbiology Core are in some way related to the culture of microorganisms, since all our procedures either begin or end with the growth of a bacterium or parasite. The services have been designed to fill three different investigator needs: 1. Provide unique equipment and the skills needed to operate it, allowing investigators to carry out digestive disease-related research for which their own laboratories are not equipped. Examples are large volume culture of organisms requiring a BL2-large-scale level of containment, or culture of organisms that require specialized vessels, growth conditions, or special expertise (Giardia, Helicobacter). Another example is production of a protein whose purification requires not only large-scale cultures, but also safe and rapid reduction of 10-20 L of spent culture medium to manageable size, followed by protein purification. In most laboratories the safe handling of such volumes is extremely cumbersome and often not possible. 2. Perform procedures that various GRASP laboratories require only periodically, essential to their work but inefficiently done owing to infrequency of use. These procedures are within the capabilities of our users but are done in the core every day, with high consistency and quality. Examples of these services are production of competent cells and plasmid preparations. As revealed by the heavy use of these services, our scientists clearly find them valuable, cost-efficient, and a great convenience. 3. Perform services that are not complex, but time-consuming. This saves wear and tear on investigators and technicians, and saves their time. The best example in this category is media preparation.
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