Ozone free box for microarray based functional genomics studies

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High throughput functional genomics and proteomics studies are the major focus of the research conducted in a multi-user Agricultural Genomics and Proteomics Unit (AGP Unit) in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science. Various researchers from The Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Livestock Genomics, The Dairy Nutritional Research Group, The Swine Reproduction-Development Program/Embryogene Network, Plant Biotechnology and plant pathology group, Human Nutrition program, Immunology, Food microbiology, Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals group, and scientists at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, are currently supporting the research programs of over 100 users. All these groups are applying innovative efforts to improve production and reproductive performance of livestock, developing animal products with improved nutritional qualities, understanding molecular mechanisms of host-microbial interactions and creating crops with improved disease resistance and value added characteristics. DNA and protein microarrays are widely used by most of the researchers at the AGP Unit. BioTray®'s Ozone Free BoxTM is a powerful solution which totally destroys ozone in order to have an ozone free environment during microarray sample preparation, hybridization, washes, drying and scanning stages. With this ozone free space, highly reproducible data from microarray with minimal technical variation will be generated and this is particularly important to accurately quantify the transcripts in a given cell or tissue under different treatments or physiological conditions. This should also significantly improve image quality of the scanned microarray slides with increased reproducibility and data quality after scanning. The availability of the microarray hybridization station is crucial and required for a variety of applications by research projects of 9 major users as well as additional minor users within this large core facility. This will further facilitate the training of students, technicians and postdocs in current genomics technologies. The research supported by this infrastructure will play an important role towards the future sustainability and profitability of Canadian agriculture industries.