Gel documentation system

为了了解事物是如何工作的，科学家们经常需要观察细胞内部或组织样本，看看当疾病、营养不良、受伤或愈合和修复时发生了什么变化。这对于了解疾病如何发生、如何治愈以及治疗是否有效非常重要。细胞的生死是由由蛋白质组成的专门的小机器控制的。我们的DNA为这些小蛋白质编码，有成千上万种不同的蛋白质，每一种在体内都有不同的作用。它们中的一些为细胞运输食物，一些在器官之间传递信息，一些在血液中携带氧气或营养物质，还有一些在组织的受损部分做标记以供修复。这些蛋白质的水平或高或低，以及这些蛋白质外观的变化，可能是疾病的征兆，也可能是治疗有效的迹象。测量特定体内蛋白质的水平和变化及其结构的变化对所有生命科学、生物医学和健康研究都至关重要。为了做到这一点，我们需要凝胶文档设备。有了这个设备，滑铁卢大学的许多不同的研究人员将在许多不同的方面得到帮助。一些科学家正在研究大脑是如何工作的，他们需要能够测量与神经元放电和神经元分支以及大脑生长和修复有关的蛋白质水平。其他人正在研究改变某些蛋白质的水平是否会使癌细胞对常规治疗更敏感。有些人试图了解阿尔茨海默病的蛋白质标志物是否会出现在血液和唾液中，有些人试图了解儿童视力的发育问题。其他人则对怀孕期间蛋白质的变化如何影响后代的健康感兴趣。获得这一强大的资源对滑铁卢大学的生命科学研究至关重要，并将帮助我们保持加拿大研究的领先地位。

In order to understand how things work, scientists often need to look inside cells or at samples of tissues, to see what is changing when there is disease, or poor nutrition, or injury, or in healing and repair. This is important for understanding how disease happens, how it is cured, and whether treatments are working. The life and death of cells is controlled by specialized little machines that are made up of proteins. Our DNA codes for these little proteins, and there are thousands of different ones that each do a different job in the body. Some of them transport food for cells, some of them transmit messages between organs, some of them carry oxygen or nutrients in the blood, and some of them mark damaged parts of tissues for repair. Higher or lower levels of these proteins, and changes in what these proteins look like, can be an indication of disease, or an indication that a treatment is working. Measuring levels and changes in specific body proteins, and changes in their structure, is critical to all life sciences, biomedical, and health research. In order to do this, we need gel documentation equipment. Having this equipment will help lots of different researchers at the University of Waterloo, in many different ways. Some scientists are studying how the brain works, and they need to be able to measure the levels of proteins involved in neuron firing and neuron branching, and in brain growth and repair. Others are studying whether changing levels of some proteins can make cancer cells more sensitive to conventional treatments. Some are trying to understand whether protein markers of Alzheimer's disease show up in blood and spit, and some are trying to understand developmental problems in eyesight in kids. Others are interested in how protein changes during pregnancy affect the health of their offspring later on. Access to this powerful resource is absolutely critical for life sciences research at the University of Waterloo, and will help us to keep Canadian research at the leading edge.