This application requests funds for the purchase of an Illumina iScan instrument that will be dedicated to the molecular genomic needs of four NIH-funded Major Users on the Bayview campus of the Johns Hopkins University. This campus contains the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Hospital, the Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center and Geriatrics Center, the renovated Baltimore City hospital containing 60,000 square feet of renovated research laboratories, and three buildings housing the intramural research programs of the National Institute of Aging (NIA) and National Institutes in Drug Abuse (NIDA). The Hopkins Bayview faculty account for one-third of the total research dollars awarded to the Department of Medicine (~$50M in FY 2008). Most relevant to this application, the Bayview Genetics/Genomics Research Facility is located on this campus, and provides fee for service items including sample processing and storage and gene expression profiling of RNA specimens from well-characterized patient populations. In light of the rapidly growing field of high throughput genomics, there is a dire need for securing its own Illumina scanner for the JHBMC Lowe Family Genomics Core since at present the Core is dependent on the use of scanners at the neighboring JHU SNP Center (CIDR), which is experiencing its own rapid growth and the availability of these scanners has become increasingly precarious. There is now one full service core for Illumina gene expression on the downtown campus, run by the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) DNA Microarray Core Facility. This facility is jointly run by Stephen Baylin, MD (Director) and Wayne Yu, PhD (Co-director) and includes a single Illumina iScan scanner for reading beadarrays. The facility is approximately 4 miles away in the heart of the city, where parking is not readily available. While a shuttle bus runs between the Bayview and downtown campus every 20-30 minutes, the logistics of transporting large numbers of precious RNA samples through this system is problematic at best. The requested instrument will be available to all users (only Core personnel will have direct access to the scanner) when using the Core services on a first-come, first-serve, fee-for-service basis. A major factor in the success of this application is that the use of this instrument and its integration into our regular activities as a critical core on the Bayview campus has already been well-established. The only major change will be that the instrument will now be housed within our core rather than borrowed from another facility. The instrument will serve as a major expansion in the capacity and delivery of services in the Bayview Genetic/Genomics Research Facility to meet the current and future needs of investigators at Hopkins Bayview.
| Hardick, Justin; Dugas, Andrea; Goheen, Joshua et al. (2015) Prospective comparison of RT-PCR/ESI-MS to Prodesse ProFlu Plus and Cepheid GenXpert for the detection of Influenza A and B viruses. J Virol Methods 214:43-5 |
