Penn State College of Medicine has shared-service core research facilities that provide specialized instrumentation and analytical services for the conduct of basic, clinical, and translational research.
Facilities are available to both Penn State University faculty and outside users.
Fees for service are recalculated each year to cover maintenance, consumables, and salary costs, and are available from individual programs or resources upon request.
Questions about Penn State College of Medicine core facilities can be directed to Maria Bewley, PhD, Interim Senior Scientific Director of the Research Resources Core Facilities.
Email mbewley@Penn State College of Medicine's Flow Cytometry Core is designed to facilitate cutting-edge research by providing state-of-the-art fluorescence-activated cell sorting and analytical services at reasonable hourly rates.
To achieve these goals, the facility provides three full-time staff and a faculty director to help investigators with all aspects of data collection, including experiment design.
The Penn State College of Medicine Genome Sciences Facility provides consultation, instrumentation, and services in genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic studies, from highly focused analysis of candidate SNPs and mRNAs to whole genome, exome, epigenome, and transcriptome sequencing.
Other genomics work is undertaken in the new Zebrafish Functional Genomics Core and the Macromolecular Synthesis Core.
Imaging services are a key part of the offerings at Penn State College of Medicine, including a variety of microscopy instrumentation, such as confocal, multiphoton, deconvolution, TEM, Cryo-EM, 3D and 4D.
Bioluminescence whole-animal imaging is also available, as are MRI and NMR magnetic-resonance services.
A number of bioinformatics resources are available at Penn State College of Medicine, including a dedicated Bioinformatics & Biostatistics Core and a High-Performance Computing service reserved for use by College investigators.
Other services include consultations in bioinformatics, a variety of data analysis services across scientific disciplines, custom scripts and software, and the Clarity LIMS LabLink system.
The Mass Spectrometry & Proteomics Core at Penn State College of Medicine offers a variety of instrumentation for analyses of protein, peptide, lipid, small molecule, and oligonucleotide samples.
Other services offered include protein expression analysis and proteomic data analysis.
Penn State College of Medicine offers a variety of services in pathology and specimen processing, including the Clinical Research Biospecimen Core, opened in 2016.
Other resources include a biorepository and tissue bank co-managed between the Institute for Personalized Medicine and the Cancer Institute, as well as human and animal pathology expertise.
The Penn State College of Medicine Drug Discovery, Development & Delivery (D4) Core Facility is a partnership between Pharmacology, the Penn State Cancer Institute, and other collaborators that provides a one-stop shop to fully realize your drug's potential.
The core offers a large, commercially-purchased small-molecule library; high-throughput screening; expertise in drug delivery formulations (i.e. nanotechnology), and more.
Penn State College of Medicine's Qualitative and Mixed Methods Core provides services such as interviewing, transcription and coding to study teams who want to implement qualitative and mixed methods practices in their project.
The core helps research teams achieve project goals from conceptualization to implementation, assists with analyzing and publishing data, provides training and workshops, and more.
The Penn State College of Medicine Supply Center offers a reagent stock program.
Internal investigators have access to frequently-used items in an on-site supply center, and other materials can be special-ordered by the Supply Center team weekly.
Penn State College of Medicine offers accredited services in the generation of transgenic and knockout mice and in rederivation. The College is also home to a zebrafish facility (opened in 2016) and a pulmonary immunology and physiology facility (opened in 2015).
The laboratory animal medicine programs at Penn State College of Medicine are accredited through a number of major organizations, including AAALAC International, AALAS, ACLAM, ASLAP, AAVMC and PSBR.