This award provides funds to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for the purchase of 15 items of equipment to be used for core laboratories doing DNA and protein sequencing, tissue culture work and densitometry. These labs will provide research services and training to researchers using molecular techniques to study a variety of biological problems. These include enzymes and peptides involved in the nervous system, the mechanism of action of steroids and of protein hormones at the gene and at the cell membrane, antigenic variability in bacteria, and mitochondrial gene regulation. The rapid advance of our understanding of a variety of biological processes has been due in no small part to the development of sophisticated instruments for the purification and analysis of nucleic acids and proteins. The equipment purchased through this award will enable a large group of investigators with diverse interests to pursue a variety of projects concerned with the action of hormones, with the regulation of cell growth and function, and with other aspects of the control of gene activity. The rates of progress on these projects and the experimental skill of the various investigators, their associates and their students will be augmented by the equipping of core facilities made possible through this award.
