At present, the University of Pittsburgh has no microarray facility dedicated to serve the neuroscience community. Establishing a core resource that will permit the widespread use of this technology is essential. Indeed, recent external advisory board evaluations of our Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders (CNMD) and the Department of Psychiatry both identified, as a priority, the creation of a core microarray facility dedicated to neuroscience because """"""""continued success in this arena is dependent upon an improved infrastructure for molecular biology/genetic studies."""""""" PittArray, the only microarray facility currently serving the needs of University of Pittsburgh researchers, located in a 200 sq. ft. laboratory, is oversubscribed and offers only limited services. We propose to establish NeuroArray, a microarray core that will serve group of more than 120 facuilty doing neuroscience-related research in the Schools of Health Sciences and College of Arts and Sciences, all physically located on the same campus. The integrated DNA microarray center will have capabilities to perform Microarray probe synthesis, printing, hybridization, scanning and verification. Due to the large demand of our neuroscience community for such a resource and the ongoing activities, we expect that NeuroArray will be working at full capacity as soon as it is established. Several investigators (Mimics, Levitt, Lewis, Pierri) already have obtained external funding for projects involving microarray experiments and have a track record using microarray technology. We expect that NeuroArray will operate on a cost-recovery base within two years, with initial funding from various departments and centers. The microarray core will be managed by Dr. Mimics, who has been the co-director of the University of Pittsburgh Microarray Core Facility (PittArray) for over three years. A steering committee will oversee the operation of NeuroArray. NeuroArray will be housed in a centrally located Biomedical Science Tower of the Health Sciences. The Departments of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, Neurology, the Center for Neural Bases of Cognition (CNBC), as well as the School of Medicine are committed to establishing and maintaining NeuroArray. The commitment is long-term, with the facility serving as a valuable addition to other functional genomic resources at the University of Pittsburgh.
