Acquisition of a Surface Plasmon Resonance Biosensor: Enhancing Biomedical (Bio)Molecular Recognition Projects

描述（由申请人提供）：杜兰大学坚定地致力于开展尖端的生物医学研究，其研究人员仅在上一个财政年度就收到了超过5000万美元的NIH资金。特别是，杜兰大学旨在通过培养跨学科的研究人员团队共同努力解决过度的生物医学问题来实现其减轻疾病负担的长期生物医学目标。作为这项工作的一部分，杜兰大学三个学院（科学/工程、热带医学/公共卫生和医学）的11名研究人员和附近路易斯安那州泽维尔大学的两名研究人员正在努力开发一个卓越的（生物）分子识别核心。这个多样化的研究小组，从化学家到病毒学家到免疫学家，正在研究各种蛋白质-蛋白质，蛋白质-小分子，蛋白质-DNA，DNA-小分子和小分子-小分子相互作用的基本方面，最终目标是帮助开发从癌症到疟疾到病毒性发热等疾病的治疗和诊断药物。什么是在这些项目中的一个共同点是（生物）分子相互作用的动力学和热力学参数的定量表征的迫切需要。虽然这一核心研究人员可以使用许多其他技术来测量结合（包括荧光偏振，等温滴定量热法和核磁共振），但缺乏分析（生物）分子相互作用的关键基石。具体而言，杜兰公司没有功能性表面等离子体共振（SPR）仪器。所要求的基于SPR的Biacore T200特别适合用户群体的需求，因为它需要最少的样品，具有高灵敏度，高通量，并内置了免疫学筛选软件。Biacore T200将被安置在约翰班尼特约翰斯顿健康和环境研究大楼（JBJ），该大楼已通过NIH基金进行了新装修，其确切目标是促进跨学科研究。Biacore T200将由Dr. D.格里姆是一名仪器专家，他在杜兰中央仪器设施工作了20多年，目前是该设施的助理主任。T200的服务合同和年度供应将由用户费用支付，并得到杜兰领导层的明确支持。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Tulane University has a strong commitment to conducting cutting-edge biomedical research and its investigators have received over $50 million in NIH funds in the last fiscal year alone. In particular, Tulane aims to achieve its long-term biomedical goal of alleviating the burden of disease by fostering interdisciplinary teams of researchers to work together to solve over-arching biomedical issues. As part of this effort, a group of eleven investigators spanning three Schools (Science/Engineering, Tropical Medicine/Public Health, and Medicine) at Tulane and two researchers from nearby Xavier University of Louisiana, an HBCU, are working to develop a core of excellence in (bio)molecular recognition. This diverse group of researchers, ranging from chemists to virologists to immunologists, are studying fundamental aspects of various protein-protein, protein-small molecule, protein-DNA, DNA-small molecule, and small molecule-small molecule interactions, with the ultimate goal of aiding in the development of therapeutic and diagnostic agents for diseases ranging from cancer to malaria to viral fever. What is a common thread in these projects is the critical need for quantitative characterization of kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of (bio)molecular interactions. While this core of researchers has access to many other techniques for measuring binding (including fluorescence polarization, isothermal titration calorimetry, and nuclear magnetic resonance), a key cornerstone for the analysis of (bio)molecular interactions is lacking. Specifically, Tulane does not possess a functional surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instrument. The requested SPR based Biacore T200 is especially suited for the needs of the user group because it requires minimal sample, has high sensitivity, is high throughput, and has built in software for immunological screening. The Biacore T200 will be housed in the John Bennett Johnston Health and Environmental Research Building (JBJ) building that has been newly renovated, via NIH funds, with the precise goal of fostering interdisciplinary research. The Biacore T200 will be operated and maintained by Dr. D. Grimm, an instrumentation specialist, who has over 20 years of experience working in the Tulane Central Instrumentation Facility and currently is the assistant director of the facility. The servie contract and yearly supplies for the T200 will be covered from user fees with the explicit backstop from the leadership of Tulane.