The Biomolecular Core has continued to evolve by providing new services when required, while eliminating other services that became unnecessary. The newest function added during the current year is a Biomolecular Imaging Facility consisting of a Molecular Dynamic Phosphorimager and a Digital Microscopy Facility. The latter is still under development, and will provide MAMDC investigators with state-of-the-art facilities for microscopic image acquisition, analysis, and manipulation. Other functions of the Biomolecular Core include 1) an autoimmune serum blank, cell blank, and clinical databases, 2) a flow cytometry facility, and 3) an inbred mouse colony. Additional functions, formerly par of the Biomolecular Core, are now free-standing and no-longer require support. These include the DNA Sequencing Facility, which was organized under the auspices of the MAMDC and the Program in Molecular Biology, and is now self-supporting. The protein purification and characterization facility also has been eliminated because many of the techniques are well established in individual investigators' laboratories or have been incorporated into the peptide synthesis/analysis facility directed by Dr. David Klapper (see Progress Report). Finally, maintenance of the Center's computing facilities will be taken over by the Numerical Sciences Core (NUSCOR). The purpose of the Biomolecular Core is to provide functions that are required by a large number of investigators but which can not easily be duplicated within each of the individual laboratories. This includes the acquisition, upgrading, and maintenance of costly equipment utilized by several of the individual laboratories involved in biomedical research. Centralizing these facilities results in an economy of scale, allowing access to new technology at a substantially discounted cost to the investigator.
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