BD Biosciences LSR II FACS for the University of South Carolina

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests $277,596 to purchase a BD Biosciences LSR II FACS system. The system will be housed in the Instrumentation Resource Facility (IRF) of the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Center for Colon Cancer Research. The IRF is an established core biotechnology facility serving the University of South Carolina as well as several other undergraduate and graduate institutions in the State of South Carolina. The only core facility FACS system available at the University of South Carolina is a 15 year old Beckman Coulter Epics XL, which is very outdated with regard to lasers, fluorochrome excitation and emission, signal detection, and data analysis. Notably, two of the Major Users on this proposal are PIs of large Center grants, one on colon cancer and one on autoimmune diseases and inflammation. Major users of the system will be 7 NIH funded researchers as well as a Junior Investigator, Dr. Udai Singh who is a Research Assistant Professor in the IRF. In addition to the two Center Grants the group serves as PIs of 11 R01 grants and Co-Is on a number of other NIH grants. The system will be used in a variety of research areas including inflammation, immunology, cancer, HIV-AIDS and cardiovascular development and disease. As detailed in the proposal the biomedical research environment at the University of South is rapidly expanding and no state of the art FACS systems capable of detecting more than four colors is available to the research community. This has adversely affected the research programs of the investigators participating in this proposal as well as the recruitment to the University of South Carolina of other promising scientists. Acquisition of this system and housing it in an established core facility will allow access to it by a large number of investigators and will significantly enhance the research environment at the University of South Carolina and in the State of South Carolina. Public Health Relevance: Cell sorting is essential in the study of many diseases that involve inflammation such as cancer, HIV, and cardiovascular hypertrophy. The immunology of the multiple cell types present and the ability to distinguish the types of cells present and their various biomarkers is most readily performed with high resolution, multi-color, high throughput instrumentation such as the requested BD Biosciences LSR II sorter.