A core of instrumentation will be established to facilitate and promote a variety o ongoing projects in molecular biology and molecular genetics being carried out in moste of the laboratories in the Department of Biological Sciences. The following new equipment items are requested: a computerized 2-dimensional densitometer, - a 2dimensional radioactivity scanner, a DNA sequencer, a - DNA/RNA extractor, and an automated pipettor/crystallizer. The facility will also include a DNA synthesizer, a fluorimeter, an HPLC, and a high voltage paper electrophoresis station. The facility will be supervised and maintained by a dedicated technician, who will also carry out the DNA syntheses and the DNA sequencing gel runs. Major users of this facility are studying the expression of the dihydrofolate reductase gene in cultured mammalian cells, the role of the enhancer in immunoglobulin gene regulation, the mechanism of RNA splicing and 31 end formation, DNA tumor virus replication, transcriptional regulation of the c-fos oncogene, the biogenesis of mitochondria in yeast, transcription termination and antitermination in E. coli, the characterization of genes controlling cell differentiation in C. elegans, and the molecular genetics of morphogenesis in Drosophila. The facility will be available to all researchers in the 24 laboratories of the Department of Biological Sciences at the Morningside Campus at Columbia. Several of these projects have direct relevance to human disease (e. g. , oncogenes, tumor viruses, environmental mutagens, nerve degeneration) but for the most part they represent basic research in genetics, biochemistry, development, and neurobiology.
