Biophysics Core Facility

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The Biophysics Core Facility service to the NIH scientific community consists of three main categories: direct research support, including instrument use, collaboration on research projects and scientific consultations; development and optimization of measurement methods and user training. In the reporting period the total instrument workload by NHLBI and NIH researchers in the Biophysics Core reached 3,012 hours. During this time, the Biophysics Core Facility users included principal investigators, staff scientists, postdocs and students from the following labs: NHLBI laboratories (listed alphabetically by the PI name): R. Balaban, J. Chung, A. Ferre-D'Amare, J. Hammer, E. Korn, R. Kotin, J. Lee, R. Levine, K. Neuman, A. Peterkofsky, A. Roll-Mecak, J. Sellers, J. Taraska, N. Tjandra, K. Zhao. Other NIH laboratories: R. Woodgate, (NICHD), C. Barry, J. Patton (both NIAID), P. Becerra (NEI), S. Buchanan (NIDDK), K. Gawrisch (NIAAA). The educational and training efforts of the Biophysics Core Facility led to the development of a series of introductory lectures covering details of specific techniques offered in the Core, and an overview presentation, which concisely describes all available techniques with examples of their applications. The Biophysics Core Facility co-organized the Workshop on Hydrodynamic and Thermodynamic Analysis of Macromolecules with SEDFIT and SEDPHAT. This workshop was conducted in May 2013 to teach strategies for hydrodynamic and thermodynamic analysis of sedimentation equilibrium (SE) and sedimentation velocity (SV) AUC, DLS, ITC and fluorescence spectroscopy for the characterization of biological macromolecules in solution. It consisted of over 35 hours of lectures and hands-on data analysis sessions. This workshop was attended not only by DIR researchers, but also by scientists from outside the NIH, with 27 registered trainees and over 50 researchers attending workshop lectures. Biophysics Core Facility users are also individually trained on particular techniques and on the instrument operation. Core Facility users request training online through the iLab system. In the reporting period the Biophysics Core Facility got 107 iLab requests.