Description
The overall goal of the Molecular Biology Facility Core is to provide Center Investigators access to sophisticated and state-of-the-art molecular techniques, services, and instrumentation. Because the Center is multidisciplinary in nature, the level of support needed by different Center investigators varies widely. Consequently, the level of access offered by the Molecular Biology Facility Core varies from consultation and advice on specific aspects of projects, through training on particular techniques and/or instruments available in the Core, to complete molecular analyses from sample preparation to the final data analysis and interpretation.
The Specific Aims of Facility Core 1 are:
- to continue to provide molecular biology services and assays in response to the needs of Center Members, including a variety of DNA level techniques, comparative expression analysis and protein separation, identification and analysis;
- to provide instruction and assistance to Center investigator laboratories in the use of macroscopic image equipment and computer software for digital image acquisition and analysis, sequence data analysis, and sequence database searching;
- to provide supervised access to realtime PCR, high throughput sequencing, fragment analysis, and robotic equipment;
- to provide expertise, consultation and training for a wide range of molecular biology procedures, especially in gene expression and protein expression techniques;
- to identify, introduce/develop, and implement new technologies and new assays to meet the needs of Center Members and the emerging needs of new Center initiatives.
Significance
Environmental health science research has made tremendous progress over the past decade in the molecular understanding of the responses of organisms to environmental exposures, disease processes, and gene-environment interactions. Much of this progress is built upon the availability of virtually complete sequence information for the human and mouse genomes, as well as full genome coverage of numerous mammals (rat, dog, cow) and other diverse species. As annotated gene and protein sequences become increasingly available, and as more diverse and reliable transcriptomic and proteomic data accumulates, opportunities continue to expand for the application of molecular biology to the environmental health sciences. Major areas of interest include the determination of a much wider range of genetic differences that may affect the response of organisms to their environment; deeper understanding of induced changes in gene expression following environmental exposures; determination of mechanisms by which exposures induce epigenetic changes in expression patterns; and a richer understanding of cellular signaling pathways that control and modulate both the response to toxicants and the progress of environmental diseases, providing new targets for intervention.
As a result, most projects of Center Members require the application of molecular biology at some level. The kinds of techniques utilized range from simple DNA isolation, sequencing and genotyping, through comparative expression analyses at both the RNA and protein levels. Thus, the ability of the Center to provide support for a variety of molecular techniques is a critical factor in the success of the Center. These techniques require both a deep understanding of molecular biology, extreme care and quality control in laboratory techniques, organization and workflow analysis to attain high throughput, and importantly in many cases extremely expensive equipment. The Molecular Biology Facility Core is organized to provide these attributes in the most cost-effective way possible, while maintaining the ability to respond rapidly to new initiatives and research needs of Center Members.
Staff
Jianjun Shen, Ph.D., Core Director
Xifeng Wu, Ph,D., Co-Director
Sean Hensley, B.S., Research Laboratory Coordinator
Michelle Byrom, B.S., Senior Research Assistant
Thom Chang, M.S., Senior Research Assistant
Kelli Kochan, M.S., Senior Research Assistant
Robert Meade, M.S., Senior Research Assistant
Lisa Schroeder, B.S., Senior Research Assistant
Angelina Traner, B.S., Research Assistant II
Huifeng Zhang, Research Investigator
