Purchase of a small animal irradiator

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Biological irradiators, using either X-ray or radioactive sources, are often used in cell biology to introduce DNA damage and to stop cell proliferation. In addition to the use of irradiation as a direct method to study the impact of DNA damage to cell growth and/or the mechanisms associated with DNA repair, irradiation has other, widespread, potential applications: 1) total body irradiation will wipe out the animal's immune system, which can then be replaced by cells of different genetic composition to study the mechanisms of blood cell development or of the immune response; 2) targeted irradiation can be used to sterilize mice to study infertility and the generation and production of sperm; 3) irradiation of bacterial pathogens can serve to determine roles of specific components, growth conditions, or regulatory pathways in stress resistance that could contribute to survival on foods and virulence; and 4) irradiation of cells in culture can be used to reduce the number of confounding variables from experimental systems including more than one cell type. In brief, access to irradiation sources is essential for a wide variety of research programs in natural sciences.