The Boston-Cambridge area is home to a large research community of diverse scientists studying Type I and Type II diabetes. At present, many investigators are attempting to carry out techniques in their own laboratories for research goals that in many cases are no longer their primary area of specialty. This is particularly true for flow cytometry and complex separations of lymphocytes with the need for tight controls on the quality of the preparations. Importantly, few flow cytometry cores are dedicated to investigators involved in diabetes research. The purpose of this Immunology Core of the Boston Area Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center (BADERC) is to financially improve and scientifically expedite the translation of excellent ongoing diabetes research through a cost efficient mechanism. This has been successfully accomplished by the Immunology Core, which has been highly utilized over the past 5 years. The Immunology Core has provided strong education to investigators and a diversity of state-of-the-art flow cytometric techniques and new robotic methods for lymphocyte separations. Remarkably, at the entire Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School as well as Boston University no flow cytometry core for diabetes users and collaborators and for their applications central to Type 1 and Type II diabetes research existed prior to the BADERC. The Immunology Flow Cytometry Core has provided these fundamental services to the Boston-Cambridge diabetes based research community including: .Flow cytometer access, data preparation and interpretations .Flow cytometry training, education and experiment design assistance. .Flow cytometry sample analysis with sorting, multi-color detection, fluorchrome labeling, antibody purifications, DNA and Ca flux experiments, etc. .Manual and robotic human blood lymphocyte separations for standardizations of assays using robotics. These Center services have been very cost effective as well as to provide rigorous training in Immunology.
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