High-throughput plate readers to support imaging of live cells would greatly facilitate numerous NIH-funded projects on the campus of the University of Illinois and is the focus of this shared instrumentation proposal, which includes 15 NIH supported projects from major and minor users of 11 faculty members, both junior and senior, from five departments. Research areas represented by these projects are broad, encompassing research into causes and treatments for a variety of types of cancers, progenitor cell differentiation, HIV-1 research, therapeutics for psychiatric disorders, developing systems for computer simulation of protein folding and binding, to mechanisms of bile duct paucity and biomarkers and treatments for liver disease. A Biotek Cytation 5 Imaging Multi-mode Plate Reader, consisting of a temperature/gas controlled microscopic imaging reader, multi-function for absorbance/fluorescence/luminescence plate reader, plate stacker and automated incubator, is requested. The reader is equipped with automated digital wide field microscopy and the capability to link several detection modalities, imaging and data analysis technologies in one easy-to-use compact unit. It allows researchers to capture high-quality live cell images, including 3D cultures, in various formats and in real-time, which has significant advantages over traditional plate-readers or microscopes. The acquisition of such equipment would allow the project team and other potential future users to capture rich phenotypic information and collect meaningful quantitative data in a single platform. This technology is necessary to establish standard operating procedures for high throughput screening of bioactive compounds simultaneously under various cell culture conditions. As such, it will significantly advance our research towards understanding mechanisms and finding new targets and treatments for various diseases including glioblastoma multiforme, metastatic osteosarcoma, breast cancer, endometriosis, multiple sclerosis, obesity and liver diseases, Alzheimer?s disease, bipolar disorder, metastasis and therapy resistance, AIDS, and psychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, and OCD. This proposal provides information regarding how the requested equipment would be used to further these research areas and describes the commitment of the University of Illinois to oversee the administration and management of this equipment for the project team and campus and to ensure that it will be maintained for the lifetime of the instrument.
Several NIH-funded investigators in the Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Bioengineering, Physics, and molecular Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois seek funding to purchase a Biotek Cytation 5 Imaging Multi-Mode Reader for combined image reading and absorbance/fluorescence/luminescence reading. Such an instrument will enable research not previously supported by existing equipment, including time sensitive and more complex screening assays for analysis of biochemical and cell-based activities in 96 or 384 well plates, as well as high-throughput image-based analysis of live cells in real- time, with ultimately leading to much more rapid progress toward our project goals.
