Department Core Facility Plate Reader

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This request is for a state of the art plate reader that will serve the needs of 12 faculty researchers in the Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, their 68 graduate students, and a similar number of undergraduate student projects annually. Five of these 12 faculty researchers are strongly supporting this application. The 12 faculty researchers either study various aspects of cellular metabolism, or need to measure cellular metabolites, enzyme activities or signalling agents to describe and quantify physiological or pathophysiological process in cells, tissues and organs. This new plate reader would replace an aging one (over 12 years old) that is increasingly unreliable, and reduce the load on another researcher's instrument that is heavily used. While there are two newer (less than 5 years old) plate readers in the Department, they 'belong' to researchers with large lab groups who needed dedicated equipment. The requested plate reader is therefore to provide a very good level of service to Departmental researchers needing to use a good plate reader with UV, luminescence, absorbance, fluorescence and kinetic capabilities.The equipment would also be used by post-doctoral fellows and graduate students working in the applicants' labs. This equipment is also important in the training of undergraduate students, of which we have increased numbers performing excellent, lab-based research projects. Learning how to use this equipment and processing samples for analysis comprises an important part of the training of these people.