Research Project
10271833
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The broad, long-term goal of the Systems Biology Core (SBC) within the Nebraska Center for Integrated Biomolecular Communication (CIBC) is to serve as a sustainable resource that enables CIBC, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), and other academic and industrial researchers to investigate complex biological systems. SBC provides a diverse set of OMICS (i.e., lipidomics, metabolomics, and proteomics), microscopy, and structural biology services, which afford distinct and invaluable views of an entire system and, accordingly, are critical to the needs of CIBC Project Leaders and other Center members. The successful application of microscopy, OMICs, and structural biology techniques are highly dependent on the expertise and experience of the investigator. Understanding the challenges these methods present to novice and new investigators has informed the overarching vision of SBC. SBC eschews the typical sample-based service model of a common facility and instead has adopted a personalized collaborative approach to enable the correct utilization of microscopy, OMICs, and structural biology methods by new investigators. In this regard, SBC provides assistance and training from project conception, experimental design, and sample preparation through implementation and dissemination. An important goal of SBC is enabling the long-term adoption of SBC technologies through personalized hands-on training and workshops?in other words, SBC personnel are collaborators and instructors. During Phase 1, SBC established its service pipeline and is providing efficient and high-quality data to CIBC personnel. SBC created the critical infrastructure for managing projects, samples, and data and the rapid dissemination of information to investigators. Building on the momentum and successes from Phase 1, the goal of SBC for Phase 2 is to grow and improve SBC service in response to the needs of CIBC Project Leaders and other Center members and to support CIBC in achieving its overall goals and long-term Center sustainability. This will be achieved by pursuing the following specific aims: 1) provide high-quality OMICs, microscopy, and structural biology assistance to CIBC projects to ensure investigators have adequate and timely access to core services, 2) enhance existing SBC OMICs techniques by expanding MS imaging, lipidomics, proteomics, and targeted metabolomics capabilities and improving the efficiency and throughput of the OMICS technology through automation, and 3) expand and enhance SBC scientific outreach services. The anticipated outcomes of SBC in Phase 2 are improved and expanded services that addresses the evolving needs of SBC clients while continuing to provide high quality and timely results. SBC will also strive to increase the throughput and efficiency of the service pipeline, expand the SBC user-base, and provide additional training opportunities that enables the adaption of OMICS, microscopy, and structural biology by non-experts.
