Replacement of a core facility's heavily-used, 22-year-old analytical flow cytometer for which parts and service are no longer guaranteed.

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Funds are requested from NSERC to replace the 22-year-old BD FACScan cytometer in the core flow cytometry facility located in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Guelph. Recent notification from the manufacturer, BD Biosciences, states that parts and service can no longer be guaranteed for this instrument and they highly recommend that it be replaced to ensure uninterrupted research progress. This makes an upgrade to a new analytical flow cytometer an urgent matter. The BD FACScan is currently supporting 22 research programs, spanning 6 departments. Since parts for the BD FACScan are no longer being manufactured, a breakdown would put many of these research programs at risk. Therefore, we propose to replace the BD FACScan with a state-of-the-art BD Accuri C6 analytical flow cytometer with a high-throughput automated sample loader. This instrument would dramatically enhance the efficiency and sophistication of flow cytometry-based research at the University of Guelph. The much greater speed at which data can be acquired with this new instrument would also mean that more users could be accommodated and experimental costs would be reduced, thereby stretching valuable research dollars. The new BD Accuri C6 flow cytometer will be used to support studies critical to understanding mechanisms of disease in animals of relevance to veterinary medicine as well as basic biological studies in pre-clinical animal models of human diseases. In addition, the Accuri C6 flow cytometer will be used in the training of Canada's next generation of scientists in the fields of immunology, virology, pathology, veterinary medicine, cancer biology, food science and stem cell biology. Remarkably, the price for a new digital BD Accuri C6 with high-throughput capability is actually less than the original analog manual sample-loading BD FACScan cost 22 years ago.