Carolina Cardiopulmonary Gene Expression Services

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over time, the primary determinant of cellular phenotypes is the pattern of genes that are expressed. For the past two decades, gene expression has been analyzed on a gene-by-gene basis in order to explain the cell biology, heredity, and pathophysiology of cardiopulmonary diseases. More recently, the advent of new technologies - especially DNA microarrays - has allowed scientists to shift their focus from single genes to patterns of gene expression that can be analyzed using computation methods. These technologic advances have been enormously instructive over the past 2-3 years, particularly in the field of tumor biology. Although there are, if anything, even more applications for these technologies in the cardiopulmonary sciences, technological and financial barriers have limited the ability of NHLBI-funded investigators to apply these methods. These barriers are particularly acute at UNC, where the NHLBI-funded investigators have limited resources to apply DNA microarrays to the scientific and medical problems they are studying. In this application, we propose to establish the Carolina Cardiopulmonary Gene Expression Services to serve the microarray needs of NHLBI-funded investigators at UNC in the Carolina Cardiovascular Biology Center, the Cystic Fibrosis Center, and the Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis. These centers encompass the major mission areas of NHLBI. We propose to take advantage of the expertise in microarray technology that has been assembled by the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at UNC, and apply this same technology to areas of interest to NHLBI. An Internal Operations Committee has been assembled to oversee the establishment and implementation of this service, to determine how access to NHLBI-funded investigators is allocated, and to ensure that issues of experimental design, quality control, and bioinformatic analysis are rigorous. This committee will also be charged to determine that the NHLBI-sponsored gene expression services remain state-of-the-art, by monitoring advances in technologies by other laboratories as well as by supporting technological advances by local scientists. The present proposal has four aims: Aim #1: Capital expansion of microarray services for UNC NHLBI-funded investigators; Aim #2: Technology expansion of UNC microarray services; Aim #3: Bioinformatics services for UNC NHLBI-funded microarray users; and Aim #4: Microarray applications in cardiopulmonary biology. These aims will support our overall goal to provide NHLBI-funded investigators at UNC with comprehensive microarray services that complement their existing research programs; we anticipate that the unified nature of our services will permit scientific and technological advances that will benefit the larger cardiopulmonary community.