Cell Biology Core

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The Cell Biology/Morphology Core provides BADERC investigators with technical support, equipment, advice and expertise for cell biological, immunocytochemical and morphological studies related to cell/membrane biology and signal transduction; cellular immunology and islet cell biology; and vascular and endothelial cell biology. The Core is located within the MGH Program in Membrane Biology facility on the 8th floor of the Simches Research Center, which is adjacent to the MGH main campus. The Core Director, Dr. Brown, is an expert in the area of membrane biology, membrane proteins, and intracellular trafficking. He has a long and well-documented track record of operating Core facilities at MGH over the past 25 years, including this BADERC Core for over 20 years. The goal of this Core is to provide access to integrated cellular imaging solutions and related expertize for problems in Diabetes and other BADERC-targeted research areas that few or no isolated laboratories have the resources to develop individually. The Cell Biology Core is designed, therefore, to maximize the use and availability of specialized pieces of equipment, that are not only prohibitively expensive for many laboratories, but that also require expensive and regular maintenance, and appropriate technical expertise to use. The Core performs all aspects of microscopy from routine immunofluorescence imaging, confocal microscopy, and (immuno)electron microscopy. The Core is especially proud of its record in successfully attracting NIH Shared Instrumentation Grants (SIGs) and institutional support over the years. With support of Core users, we have obtained 6 SIGs in little more than 12 years, the most recent of which was a $450K award in 2016 for a new Zeiss LSM800 Airyscan confocal platform that offers high sensitivity/high resolution imaging and analysis capabilities to BADERC users. Our other major confocal platform, a Nikon A1R confocal system, offers real time imaging in a temperature controlled chamber, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) and a SIG (for $300K) that was submitted in May 2021 to request major upgrades received an outstanding score of 20 and should be funded. We also offer laser cut microdissection and total internal reflection imaging. We also offer routine embedding and sectioning, and basic immunofluorescence incubation expertize. A major and important objective of the Core is to provide training of key personnel from participating laboratories, a strategy that has worked very successfully over the prior funding periods. Dr. Brown and his highly-qualified technical support staff have well-established and proven procedures for maximizing Core use in the context of varied projects and specific experimental requirements. We pay special attention to quality control procedures for image capture and analysis, and we have protocols for antibody verification to comply with current Rigor and Reproducibility standards. The bottom line is that this Core continues to work smoothly, as in the past. Its use has resulted in several hundred publications over that time that contain images taken by Core staff, or by trained users, including over 90 in the previous BADERC funding period. We expect this to continue and increase based on the usage proposed in this application.