Acquisition of Instrumentation for Establishing a Microarray Core

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A grant has been awarded to Cornell University under the direction of Dr. David Lin for partial support of instruments to be utilized in a core microarray facility. These instruments include a standard microarray platform, a spotted array platform, a hybridization station, and a liquid handler. The facility will be housed in the Veterinary Research Tower on the Cornell campus. The ability to monitor the activity of thousands of genes at once has generated new insight into diverse model systems and questions. In addition, the interpretation of microarray data can encourage interactions across disciplines, promoting collaborations among computer scientists, statisticians, and biologists. The rapid rise in microarray use, coupled with the completion of the various Genome Projects, has fueled interest in genomics. This in turn has attracted growing numbers of graduate and undergraduate students to this new field of study. These instruments will supplement existing equipment on campus, enabling a large number of faculty to complete a wide range of microarray experiments. Faculty will be able to: perform standard and spotted array experiments, create custom libraries, print custom chips, hybridize and scan chips, and use available software to analyze the data. Cornell is also developing a Genomics Program of Study aimed at training graduate and undergraduate students. As a component of this program, this Core will position Cornell to successfully provide for the needs of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates. This will improve access to and increase the use of state-of-the-art instrumentation for research by scientists across departmental units and is expected to promote interactions among diverse members of the Cornell campus, including biologists, computer scientists and statisticians.