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Full service labs
There are a number of reasons to use a full-service facility.
- It is quite expensive to replicate the equipment and expertise found in a service lab in an individual investigator's lab. Full-service labs allow investigators to "pay as you go".
- Many of the service labs are using newer equipment,and much of the equipment is under a vendor service contract to ensure proper functioning.
- The decades of experience found in most of these labs will ensure that your research is performed by experts.
- You may want to try something new, and a full service lab can help neophytes walk through the entire process.
The Cellular Imaging Shared Service can assist you with experimental design and working with these facilities. The facility staff may know more about specific topics, however, we speak their language and can help you understand what's needed to get the best results for your experiment.
Users bring formaldehyde fixed or snap-frozen tissues to the CBA Histology Service Lab (AHSC 4212) and in a week to 10 days they have microscope slides (turn-around time is somewhat dependent on the sample type and the size of the project). The slides can be stained with the routine Hematoxalyn and Eosin stain, special stains (for fat, connective tissue, mucin, etc) or the slides can be left un-stained so that users can perform immunohistochemistry on their samples.
A related lab at the Cancer center, TACMASS (AZCC 3959), also performs routine histology, with the addition of tissue microarrays, automated immunohistochemistry (robotic stainer) and tissue-capture microdissection.
ARL Electron microscopy facilities
There are two full-service electron microscopy labs on campus:
The AHSC Imaging facility (LSN 410) specializes in biological transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Users bring fixed samples and can expect either 1 um plastic sections, TEM grids, or TEM digital photos, depending on their needs and skills. Samples for SEM are processed and photographed for users.
The main campus facility, the University Spectroscopy and Imaging Facilities (Marley 101), performs both biological and materials sciences microscopy using transmission and scanning electron microscopes. In addition, this facility has a number of their instruments outfitted for energy dispersive spectroscopy.
The ARL/AZCC Cytometry Shared Service (AZCC 4920) provides full-service flow cytometry and cell sorting capabilities. Their workhorse instrument, a BD FACSAria, can count 11 different characteristics simultaneously and can sort into 4 different sub-populations.
