Caliper Life Sciences IVIS Lumina II imaging system

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of Washington Medical Center seeks the acquisition of a Caliper Life Sciences IVIS(R) Lumina II Imaging System, which will provide new experimental technology for our specific pathogen free (SPF) ABSL-2 animal facility. This instrument utilizes an ultrasensitive camera to detect both bioluminescent and fluorescent reporters within living animals, allowing users to collect anatomically localized longitudinal data on cell-specific fates, gene expression and the kinetics and distribution of replicating infectious agents within individual living animals without the need for euthanasia. This system dramatically increases the amount of data that can be collected from individual animals and reduces the number of animals required for each experiment. This technology adds the dimension of time to data sets, which is a powerful addition to experiments when coupled with the ability of the instrument to account for individual mouse variation in response to stimuli, even among genetically identical inbred strains. The acquisition of an IVIS(R) Lumina II is essential for the University of Washington to maintain its high quality of research and level of productivity, and to facilitate the expansion of the research programs carried out by several NIH-funded laboratories within the Departments of Microbiology, Laboratory Medicine, Pathology, Global Health, and Allergy/Infectious Disease. These laboratories share a common interest in host-pathogen interactions. Using rodent models of human disease, researchers will use this imaging system for in vivo monitoring of infectious diseases, immune and inflammatory responses, and gene regulation. Each of these fields of research is highly relevant to public health, enhancing our understanding of malignancy, inflammatory bowel disease, and infectious diseases of significance for global health. The animal research group that will use this in vivo imaging system consists of six major users (Cookson, Crispe, Smith, Fang, Hawn, and Skerrett). The major users are faculty within a large number of graduate and medical training programs, which support the training of an ever-increasing depth and breadth of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. We anticipate that the centralized location of this unique and powerful technology at the University Of Washington School Of Medicine will attract new users within the animal research community, which includes over 400 faculties with IACUC approved protocols. Acquisition of the Caliper Life Sciences IVIS(R) Lumina II Imaging System will foster novel insight into human disease through the study of model animal systems, and advance our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The IVIS(r) Lumina II uses an ultrasensitive camera to detect light from reporter genes and will provide anatomically localized information about cellular activities, gene expression, inflammation and infection in living animals. Importantly, the temporal aspects of these activities are also revealed. Thus, important diagnostic and potentially therapeutic information about important problems such as cancer, infection and autoimmune diseases will be provided from the studies in this application.