Acquisition of an Analytical Centrifuge

描述(由申请人提供)：建议从Beckman-Coulter购买ProteomeLab XL-I分析超速离心仪(AU)。该仪器将明确地服务于校园内多个部门的四个主要用户和五个次要用户的研究计划。来自该机构强大的、主要由NIH资助的生命科学界的一批额外的调查人员也预计将开发新的非盟项目。虽然该机构的多名研究人员进行分析超速离心实验，但这项工作一直是以服务设施的非现场费用或通过合作进行的，因为这所大学或纳什维尔附近的任何其他地方都没有可用的仪器。距离最近的仪器位于200多英里外的孟菲斯圣裘德儿童医院。对于有限数量的调查人员进行明确界定的具体研究项目，使用场外服务设施的费用就足够了。然而，随着所需实验数量的增加，成本迅速增长。此外，有些样品不能修改以运送到异地，当需要联系外部团体进行服务时，常规分析和项目开发受到限制。当地AU设施的可用性，以及通过结构生物学中心宣传资源和与感兴趣的科学家合作的现成机制，将对我们机构由NIH赞助的基础和翻译研究产生广泛的积极影响。公共卫生相关性：分析性超离心机的问世将意味着范德比尔特大学医学和生物学研究人员全面解决特定蛋白质在正常细胞中的作用及其在疾病状态下的功能障碍的能力方面的巨大飞跃。分析超速离心法被广泛认为是表征生物大分子的重要工具，促进了生物化学、癌症生物学、细胞生物学、发育生物学、免疫学、微生物学、药理学和结构生物学等领域的研究。AU在校园的供应将大大提高范德比尔特生命科学界研究小组的生产率，该社区主要致力于人类健康研究和抗击疾病的治疗策略的开发。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Purchase of a ProteomeLab XL-I analytical ultracentrifuge (AU) from Beckman-Coulter is proposed. This instrument will explicitly serve the research programs of four major and five minor users from a range of departments across the campus. The development of new AU projects is also anticipated from a cadre of additional investigators from the strong, largely NIH-funded life sciences community at this institution. While multiple investigators at this institution perform analytical ultracentrifugation experiments, this work has been exclusively performed at off-site fee for service facilities or through collaboration because there is no instrument available at this university or anywhere else in the Nashville vicinity. The closest instrument is located at St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, more than 200 miles away. Use of off-site fee for service facilities is sufficient for specific well-defined research projects by a limited number of investigators. However, the costs grow rapidly as the number of experiments needed increases. Moreover, some samples are not amendable to transportation off site, and routine analysis and project development is inhibited when it is necessary to contact outside groups to perform the service. The availability of a local AU facility combined with a ready mechanism to advertise the resource and work with interested scientists through the Center for Structural Biology will have a broad positive impact on NIH-sponsored basic and translational research at our institution. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The availability of an analytical ultracentrifuge will mean a dramatic leap forward in the ability of medical and biological researchers at Vanderbilt University to comprehensively address questions about the roles of specific proteins in normal cells and their mis-function in disease states. Analytical ultracentrifugation is broadly viewed as an important tool for characterization of biological macromolecules, fueling research programs in a variety of areas including Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Immunology, Microbiology, Pharmacology, and Structural Biology. The availability of AU on campus will significantly enhance the productivity of the research groups in the Vanderbilt life sciences community, which is largely devoted to studies of human health and development of therapeutic strategies to combat disease.