Request for a ProteinSimple Instrument. We are requesting the purchase of a ProteinSimple capillary electrophoresis protein immunoanalysis system (aka SallySue) for the high throughput cost effective analysis of proteins. This instrument utilizes capillary electrophoretic technology o separate proteins by size like standard sodium dodecyl sulfate poly acrylamide electrophoresis methodology. Subsequent immunodetection functions much like standard chemiluminescent immunoblotting approaches. The main advantages of the SallySue instrument over manual approaches are dramatically reduced hands on time, increased throughput, reduced materials cost, reduced sample consumption, increased quantitative accuracy, increased reproducibility, and lower variability. Adoption of capillary electrophoresis technology for DNA sequencing was the technological breakthrough permitting completion of the human genome project. Application of capillary electrophoresis to protein characterization promises to revolutionize conventional immunoblotting methods. This instrument will be placed in the Molecular Genetics Core facility located in Building 1, Room 710 at VAPSHCS, Seattle; as such it will be available for use by all investigators as a fee for use service. The instrument itself will be operated by trained core staf. Major users of the instrument include Steven Kahn, David Cook, Chang-en Yu, Nicole Liachko, and Brian Kraemer; minor users will be William Banks and Rebecca Hull. Overall, the instrument has utility for any molecular investigation focused on protein and has the potential to replace manual western blotting and ELISA analysis. Overall purchase of this instrument will be expected to increase the competitiveness of VA PSHCS as a research institution and further strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of its investigators molecular work with protein. The instrument will return its cost many times over in terms of saved time and labor by reducing costs for immunoblotting analysis by up to 60%. Thus research teams will have freed up resources to pursue their objectives more rapidly and in greater depth allowing more rapid progress in research into traumatic brain injury, diabetes, dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Projects impacted by this shared instrument application focus on VA research priority areas including Traumatic Brain Injury (Drs Banks, Cook), Diabetes (Drs Hull, Kahn), Dementia (Drs Cook, Yu, Kraemer, Banks), and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Liachko, Kraemer). The primary benefit to all users of the instrument will be increased reliability, throughput, and quantitativeness of immunoblotting data combined with dramatically decreased costs due to hands on time. Overall purchase of this instrument will be expected to increase the competitiveness of VA PSHCS as a research institution and further strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of its investigators molecular work with protein.
