A grant has been awarded to San Diego State University under the direction of Dr. Kathleen McGuire for partial support for the establishment of a flow cytometry facility at SDSU through the purchase of a fluorescence-activated cell sorter or FACS. The research of five major users in Biology currently requires the use of flow cytometry, a technology that allows single cells to be analyzed for a variety of traits and characteristics. An instrument that is sophisticated enough to serve the faculty at SDSU for many years to come will be purchased and placed in the Biology department.
This flow cytometer will be the first instrument of its kind at SDSU and the only one available for many of the experiments proposed by the five co-PIs of the grant. Several other faculty in Biology will also use the instrument, for research areas as diverse as the host specificity of different strains of Salmonella, the development of notachords in Ascidians, and skeletal and heart muscle structure and function. The facility will also service faculty from the department of Chemistry and members of the newly established Center for Microbial Studies. Two unique aspects of this facility will be its use by ecologists as well as cell and molecular biologists and biochemists, and its use for both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The flow cytometry facility will also permit extensive undergraduate and graduate student hands-on training and allow the use of the FACS to be incorporated into both the graduate and undergraduate curriculum in ecology, microbiology and cell and molecular biology. Because ~44% of Biology majors and 23% of SDSU's graduate students belong to underrepresented minority groups, their access to this facility and instrumentation will be readily achieved.
Each of the research programs outlined above will be significantly enhanced by the acquisition of a flow cytometry facility at SDSU, as will many other research programs across campus. The students at SDSU will be offered, for the first time, opportunities to learn about this important technology and will be able to gain skills that will provide them with better job opportunities and allow them to significantly contribute in a new way to the large biotechnology industry in the greater San Diego area and the State of California.
