Gamma counter for radioimmunoassays and cellular microbiology

两个广泛的研究需求促使该设备拨款申请购买一个伽马计数器：一个侧重于压力在自然界中的作用，另一个侧重于人类健康问题。首先，我们研究项目的大范围目标是了解自然界中哺乳动物的生态和进化，包括个体和种群水平，以及直接和最终影响其成败的因素。生存的基本现实之一是需要应付压力。它每天都影响着所有生物体，影响它们应对挑战的能力，损害健康，加速衰老过程。自然界中的动物都能巧妙地适应短期而非长期的压力源。压力轴是神经内分泌系统的一个关键部分，它整合了环境变化，并通过它来实现生命史上的繁殖、生长或将能量储存起来的决定。在怀孕期间或之后，它也会受到母体编程的永久性修改。我们中的五人（分别来自阿尔伯塔大学、不列颠哥伦比亚大学、圭尔夫大学、多伦多大学和特伦特大学）在加拿大北部工作，考虑到本世纪全球气候变化将导致的变化，这个地区的居民——植物、动物和人类——将面临巨大的挑战。所要求的设备将允许我们所有人将压力轴的激素测量整合到我们的研究项目中，使用商用套件中的伽马发射器。第二个研究需求与两个关于人类健康基础研究的项目有关。这两个项目都设在多伦多大学。首先，它将用于一个项目，以了解精神兴奋剂（可卡因等药物）如何影响对压力的行为和神经生物学反应。其次，它将用于哺乳动物疾病反应的研究——宿主细胞-微生物机制负责致病性和触发免疫反应或耐受。

Two broad research needs motivate this equipment grant request to purchase a gamma counter: one focusing on the role of stress in the natural world and the other focusing on human health issues. For the first, the broad scale objectives of our research programs are to understand the ecology and evolution of mammals in nature, both at the individual and population levels, and the factors that both proximately and ultimately affect their success or failure. One of the fundamental realities of existence is the need to cope with stress. It impacts all organisms daily, affecting the ability to respond to challenges, compromising health, and accelerating the rate of aging processes. Animals in nature are exquisitely adapted to deal with short-term, but not chronic, stressors. The stress axis is a pivotal part of the neuroendocrine system that integrates environmental change and through which life history decisions to reproduce, to grow, or to put energy into storage are implemented. It is also subject to permanent modification by maternal programming during or after pregnancy. Five of us (from the Universities of Alberta, UBC, Guelph, Toronto, and Trent) work in northern Canada, a region where the inhabitants - plant, animal, and human - will be under enormous challenges given the changes that will occur this century as a result of global climate change. The requested equipment will allow all of us to integrate hormonal measures of the stress axis into our research programs using gamma emitters from commercially available kits. The second research need is related to two programs addressing fundamental research on human health. Both programs are based at the University of Toronto. First, it will be used in a program to understand how psychostimulants (drugs such as cocaine) affect behavioural and neurobiological responses to stress. Second, it will be used in the study of mammalian disease responses - the host cell-microbial mechanisms responsible for pathogenicity and the triggering of immune reaction or tolerance.