MRI: Acquisition of Equipment for a Microgenomics Facility

在明茨博士的指导下，肯特州立大学获得了一笔赠款，用于购买两台专门用于测量细胞特异性基因表达的仪器。 第一种仪器是激光捕获显微镜，它允许研究人员从组织中提取单个细胞或细胞群，以分析其内容物。 第二种仪器是Affyscore GeneChip仪器系统，它将允许研究人员从使用激光捕获显微镜提取的几个细胞中同时分析数千个基因的表达模式。 有了这些仪器，研究人员可以检查在一个组织中混合在一起的不同类型细胞之间的基因活性差异。 这对于理解单个细胞如何在一个组织中发挥不同作用至关重要。肯特州立大学生命科学不同领域的许多项目将受益于这种仪器。 虽然这些仪器经常用于遗传和分子生物学研究，但我们主要寻求应用它们的力量来提出神经内分泌学，生殖生理学，环境生物学和生物化学领域的问题。 肯特州立大学生物科学系与物理系、数学系和计算机科学系在计算神经科学和生物信息学领域开展了持续的合作，这些仪器将为这种合作增加许多新的可能方向。除了对肯特州立大学的研究计划有益之外，这种仪器将对我们可以给学生的教育体验产生重大影响。 通过教师的个人研究指导，这种现代化设备的经验将大大有利于我们的研究生和本科生，并显着提高他们的能力，完成他们的教育后获得职位。 此外，该仪器将被纳入我们的夏季细胞和分子生物学研讨会，专门用于为感兴趣的学生提供正式的技术培训。总的来说，这个奖项将提高肯特州立大学的教师和学生的科学生产力，并支持新的和令人兴奋的研究方向。

A grant has been awarded to Kent State University under the direction of Dr. Mintz for the purchase of two instruments dedicated to measuring cell-specific gene expression. The first instrument is a laser capture microscope, which allows researchers to extract individual cells or groups of cells from tissues in order to analyze their contents. The second instrument is an Affymetrix GeneChip instrument system, which will allow researchers to analyze the expression patterns of thousands of genes simultaneously from just a few cells extracted using the laser capture microscope. With these instruments, researchers can examine differences in gene activity between different types of cells that are all mixed together in one tissue. This is of critical importance in understanding how individual cells serve different roles within one tissue.Many projects at Kent State in diverse areas of the life sciences will benefit from this instrumentation. Although these instruments are often used in genetic and molecular biology studies, we seek mainly to apply their power to ask questions in the areas of neuroendocrinology, reproductive physiology, environmental biology, and biochemistry. The Kent State Department of Biological Sciences has an ongoing collaboration with the departments of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science in the fields of computational neuroscience and bioinformatics, and these instruments will add many new possible directions for that collaboration.In addition to the benefits to Kent State's research programs, this instrumentation will have a significant impact on the educational experience we can give our students. Experience with this modern equipment through individual research mentoring by faculty will strongly benefit both our graduate and undergraduate students, and significantly enhance their ability to obtain positions after completing their educations. In addition, the instrumentation will be incorporated into our summer cell and molecular biology workshop, used specifically to give formal training in techniques to interested students. Overall, this award will enhance the scientific productivity of both faculty and students at Kent State University and support new and exciting directions in research.