A Vision Research Infrastructure Development Grant to support vision research within the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of California, Irvine is proposed to provide funding of shared equipment and resources and to promote greater collaboration between vision scientists. Recent growth within the Department has brought together cellular and molecular biologists, immunologists, virologists and engineers that share an interest in studying vision related disease mechanisms. The goals of this proposal are two fold: (1) To bring commonly used technologies together within a shared environment to provide a more efficient mechanism for supporting existing equipment and expertise. (2) To bring together individual investigators from diverse disciplines to provide an environment for collaborative multidisciplinary research that maximally utilizes the individual capabilities of the investigators within the Department of Ophthalmology. In order to achieve these goals we have identified two key functions, (1) Cell Culture; and 2) Microscopic Imaging, that not only need current support but will also greatly expand our abilities to answer vision related questions in the future. We therefore propose to establish two Core Facilities. First, the Cell Culture Facility will be established to a) maintain shared tissue culture equipment and services, b) provide routine cell culture services, c) cell banking, d) mycoplasma and endotoxin monitoring, and e) Vi-CELL(tm) Viability Analyzing. Secondly, the Microscopy Imaging Facility that will provide state-of-the-art services in a) light and fluorescent microscopy, b) confocal laser scanning microscopy, c) multiphoton confocal microscopy and time lapse imaging, d) in vivo confocal microscopy and e) quantitative morphometry and digital image analysis. While the immediate goal of this Infrastructure Development Grant is to establish more centralized facilities to save time, energy and resources, we believe that establishing these facilities will greatly expand the individual capabilities of each investigator through enhanced collaboration with other investigators from different disciplines and by providing easier access to state-of-the-art equipment and the expertise needed to fully use these new technologies.
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