Advance Technologies

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The central function of the Advanced Technologies core (ATC) will be to support GNL researchers in translating basic science knowledge and discoveries into practical measures to improve human health. Research undertaken in the GNL will identify many new potential targets for therapeutics and diagnostics against life threatening infectious diseases. In fulfilling its central function the first service that the ATC will provide will be the resources and expertise to develop in vitro assays that utilize such new targets and technologies, from the research bench top to a standardized, reproducible and validated format suitable that can be used in medium to high throughput screening (HTS) studies. Wherever possible the ATC will place emphasis on developing assays that can be conducted under low containment BSL2 conditions which will maximize their subsequent utility to the research community. However, not all assays developed will be suitable for BSL2 use and, effective validation of many of the BSL2 assays will require confirmatory studies using live pathogens under BSL3 or BSL4 containment. Therefore, as part of its in vitro assay development function the core will not only maintain BSL2 containment resources but will have the resources to conduct assay development under BSL3 and BSL4 containment conditions. The second service that the ATC will provide to the GNL will be infrastructure to conduct HTS studies using the assays that it develops, or other already existing assays under both BSL2 and BSL3 containment with the additional capacity to conduct small scale studies under BSL4 containment. This screening program will provide GNL researchers with the ability to identify active compounds to serve as leads for development of potential new therapeutics. The third major service of the ATC will be to coordinate interactions between GNL researchers and those resources and expertise in specialized research cores that already exist on the UTMB campus. In this role the ATC will contribute directly to the cost effective running of the GNL in two distinct ways. Firstly, it will ensure that GNL researchers make full use of existing resources rather than duplicating them and, secondly, it will minimize the time and effort involved in individual researchers accessing these resources on an ad hoc basis by acting as a single source point of access. This will directly increase research efficiency for the GNL.