Website: Agilent Center of Excellence in Cellular Intelligence (ACoE)
Primary Contact: Kevin Perry
Activity Description: The Agilent Center of Excellence (CoE) in Cellular Intelligence represents a partnership that aligns the strategic visions of Agilent Technologies and the UC San Diego Institute for Network Medicine to enhance and modernize quantitative biology. As embraced by their tagline “Unlocking measurement insights for 75 years", Agilent technologies is known for their leadership in innovating technologies that can quantify with precision. This partnership will enable UC San Diego's scientists to conduct biological measurements across scales using a complete and modern suite of cell analyses platforms that reveal cell fate, state and trait through measurable insights across scales. Through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, this Center also supports the training and education of future generations of scientists.
Major Equipment: 1290 Infinity II LC Biosystem, XFPro Seahorse System, xCELLigence RTCA eSight System, BioTek Cytation 10, NovoCyte Penteon Flow Cytometer, Dako Autostainer Link 48
Website: Center for Epigenomics
Primary Contact: Allen Wang
Location: CMM-East, Rooms 1056-8, 1087
Activity Description: The Center for Epigenomics grants researchers access to specialized expertise crucial for designing and conducting meaningful epigenomic experiments. Led by Dr. Bing Ren, a renowned expert in genome organization and epigenomics, and a team of senior level investigators, Dr. Allen Wang, Dr. Nathan Zemke, and Dr. Agnieszka D'Antonio-Chronowska.
The Center provides access to fully collaborative and end-to-end services for state-of-the-art technologies both commercially and not available commercially, including advanced sample preparation techniques. Its leadership is committed to maintaining cutting-edge capabilities by continually updating or replacing assays to match the fast-paced advancements in the field.
Major Equipment: Beckman Biomek i7, BioRad ChemiDoc Imager, CytoFLEX Flow Cytometer (Beckman), Spectramax i3x Multi-Mode Microplate Detection Platform (m=Molecular Devices), Fragment Analyzer, Sony Sorter SH800, Illumina NextSeq500, Beckman Biomek i7_2, CFX96 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection, CFX384 Touch Real-Time PCR, Centrifuge 5920 R, gentleMACS™ Octo Dissociator with Heaters, TSCC Compute node_2, BenchSmart96 20ul BST-96-20, Covaris ME220, Innova U725 Freezer, Mastercycler pro bundle 2, Centrifuge 5430 R, Centrifuge 5810R, 10x Genomcis controller, 10x Genomcis Chromium X
Website: Center for Epigenomics - Spatial and Functional Platform
Primary Contact: Quan Zhu
Location: CMM-East, Room 1087
Activity Description: The Spatial Genomics & Epigenomics Platform specialize in advanced epigenomic technologies designed to explore gene expression in healthy tissue, uncover spatial patterns in disease, or identify potential therapeutic targets.
Our platform and functionally analyzes both cis- and trans-regulatory elements of mammalian genomes. Cis elements, such as promoters and enhancers, and trans-acting factors, such as transcription factors and other proteins, play pivotal roles in gene regulation. By examining both types of regulatory elements in tandem, this platform provides a more comprehensive understanding of how the epigenome governs cellular processes.
Major Equipment: Custom built imaging systems, MERSCOPE, Xenium, ECHO Microscope
Website: Electron Microscopy Core
Primary Contact: Guillaume Castillon
Location: GPL, Room 218A
Activity Description: The Electron Microscopy Core's mission is to provide affordable access to electron microscopy and the associated techniques. We primarily serve the researchers of UCSD but also assist other academic institutions and corporations. Over the years, we have served more than 200 research groups and 50 companies from California and worldwide.
After consultation with the user, we adapt the sample preparation protocol to the specimen and application. We prepare samples, train, and assist users with image acquisition by transmission electron microscopy.
Our technical catalog uncovers the most popular EM methods for cellular and molecular biology.
Major Equipment: JEOL 1400 plus, FEI Tecnai Spirit G2 BioTWIN Transmission Electron Microscope, Ultramicrotome
Website: Humanoid Core
Primary Contact: Courtney Tindle
Location: GPL, Room 238
Activity Description: The HUMANOIDTM Center of Research Excellence (CoRE) offers a drug discovery pipeline, bringing a new level of personalization into disease modeling and clinical trials, providing the ability to test the efficacy of therapeutics in Phase ‘0’.
HUMANOID is creating a blueprint for academic laboratories, biotechs, and the USFDA to deliver on the promise of precision human disease modeling for reducing translational gap in drug discovery.
Major Equipment: Guava Flow Cytometer, Stellaris Confocal Microscope, Applied BioSci QuantStudio-5 [386-well HTP PCR system], IVIS Spectrum
Website: Nikon Imaging Center
Primary Contact: Peng Guo
Location: Leichtag Building, Room 483
Activity Description: NIC hosts eleven state-of-the-art multi-functional imaging systems. Together, they offer the following imaging modalities: brightfield, color, differential interference contrast (DIC), widefield fluorescence imaging, point scanning confocal imaging, micropatterning, photoactivation and stimulation, spinning disk confocal imaging, total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) imaging, spectral imaging, Super Resolution Microscopy including stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), structured illumination microscopy (SIM), NSPARC, and Image Scanning Microscopy (ISM).
The Nikon Imaging Center additionally provides cutting-edge microscopy and quantitative analysis in 3D/ 4D and machine learning.
Key functionalities include fixed and live cell subcellar imaging, and state-of-the-art super-resolution imaging. We provide the next-generation confocal imaging platform for 3D imaging that no other cores provide. All our microscope systems are capable of live cell imaging at BSL2 level that no other cores provide.
Major Equipment: Ti2 Widefield, AXR point scanning Confocal with NSPARC super-resolution, Crest V3 BioPipeline High Content Imaging Confocal, X1 Spinning Disk Confocal with TIRF and N-STORM, DeepSIM CrestOptics, W1 SoRa Spinning Disk Confocal
Website: Center for RNA Technologies and Therapeutics
Primary Contact: Katherine Rothamel
Location: Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine
Activity Description: The UCSD Center for RNA Technologies and Therapeutics serves as a major hub for integrating and supporting UCSD's efforts in the rapidly growing space of RNA biology and RNA therapeutics.
As an integral part of this mission, the Center proposes to offer to UCSD researchers, services related to RNA interactomics, including but not limited to (1) mapping RNA-binding protein (RBP) binding sites and ribosome-mRNA sites at the transcriptome-wide level and with binding site resolution, (2) isolating and sequencing, from limiting amounts of material, circular and linear RNAs from cells and tissues, and (3) synthesizing mRNA at all scales, including pilot scales, that are relevant for research purposes. We will also (4) provide access to prepackaged user-friendly computational tools and scripts to analyze spatial transcriptomics datasets, RNA-sequencing data, eCLIP data, and circular-RNA sequencing data.
Major Equipment: Biomek liquid Handler, Nanodrop spectrophotometer