Acquisition of Instrumentation for Omics Research at the University of Arizona

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A grant has been awarded to the University of Arizona under the direction of Dr. David Gang for partial support of acquisition of major instrumentation for research and training in the modern biological sciences. This research now integrates multiple technologies within research programs to allow for new ways to test hypotheses about important and fundamental biological processes in plants, animals, insects and microbes. Fostering such multidisciplinary research approaches is a major goal of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona. BIO5 is a collaborative bioresearch institute that brings together scientists from 5 disciplines-agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, basic science and engineering-to solve complex biological problems. The new instrumentation, which will be a microarray spotter, will enable BIO5 to expand into new areas in transcriptome analysis and functional genomics research.This instrument will allow researchers in BIO5, and through collaborations other researchers across the UA campus, to integrate genomics, transcriptomics and related data and technologies into their research. Microbiologists, plant geneticists, pharmacologists, cell biologists, neurobiologists, etc., who are part of BIO5 or who interact with BIO5 faculty will find that the types of data that they will be able to acquire through this instrument will be very beneficial to their research. Data acquired through this instrumentation will be part of the research projects of graduate students, undergraduate students and post-docs in the field of interdisciplinary omics. In addition, the faculty that will use this instrumentation are actively engaged in programs that seek to educate the community about the importance and utility of modern biological science. One such program, the Teacher Internships in Plant Genomics Program is designed to provide pre-service and in-service biology teachers with university-based lab experience in plant genomics at the University of Arizona. This program is designed to provide Teacher Interns with opportunities to understand the nature of science, gain first-hand experience in scientific inquiry, and to better understand and share their ideas about genetics, genomics, and plant biology. In addition, a workshop on microarrays is held twice a year at the University of Arizona, and includes participants from around the country and from other nations. This instrumentation will be used to support this workshop.