From: Umit@AOL.com
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 08:06:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: RE:"Alternative" and New Services for Core Labs
To: Recipients of ABRF List <abrf@aecom.yu.edu>
I am bit late to chime in on this, but here is my $0.02 worth of comments.
First a semantic: I believe that core facilities are not only for the
purchase and utilization of expensive equipment, although there is no denying
that this is the case. Core facilities also have provide a lot of expertise
to the market they are serve, otherwise they remain unsuccessful. For
example, Protein sequencing (Edman or DANSYL) can be done cheaply using the
ubiquitous manual chemistry methods and without the expensive equipment. But
success with either the manual or automated methods depend on the operator.
Second, in a previous life we had offered both the CD and 2D-PAGE as core
services.
The use of the CD equipment (at that time an AVIV Instruments unit) was
rather straight forward. There were no big disasters as long as the users did
not forget to turn on the liquid nitrogen source to cool the lamp compartment
(those lams are expensive!). Thus people could be trained on the instrument
and spectroscopy could be carried out with little help from the core
personnel. It was the interpretation of the data that took the expertise.
Getting the percentage of alpha helix and beta-sheet content from the
instrument directly, or calculating it later by other means is not sufficient
for successful paper writing.
The running of 2D-PAGE is probably still tricker than running the CD. Even
with the immobilized gradients (which improved gradient reproducibility)
comparison of samples from run to run is very difficult. Sample preparation
is extremely important. Scanners are relatively cheap (starting at $400), and
downloadable software like NIH image can be used to do some analysis like
relative spot intensity. The expensive commercial software allows you to
built libraries, matches between tens (if not hundreds) of gels. It is this
detection, marking and matching process of the gels that takes operator time.
Depending on the load a dedicated person may be required for this operation.
These two examples should illustrate is that the core facilities can
introduce these two services quite easily. However, to make good use of these
techniques they have to bring on board new people with expertise in these two
fields, which may be outside of the traditional core (faculty) personnel.
Will it be economically feasible for the facilities to do so? This should be
carefully considered and the outcome probably varies with the local users.
The economics brings us to my third point. Who will use these facilities and
who will be the competition? I don't foresee too many commercial companies
getting in to the field as competition. These analysis are very difficult to
validate and quite time consuming. Like the earlier response "who is to blame
if a clone does not express?"
I hope you do not find the message too long winded.
umit yuksel
Standard disclaimer: views expressed are mine and not necessarily those of my
employer, associates et al.