Center for Epithelial Function in Health and Disease

Core Facilities

Director		Facility
	Daniel C. Marcus, DSc Program Director       Lisa Duer Grant Manager       Brian Willis Administrative Assistant	Administrative Core
	Philine Wangemann, PhD Director, Core B       Joel Sanneman Confocal Core Manager	Confocal Microfluorometry and Microscopy
	Philine Wangemann, PhD Co-Director, Core C       Roman R. Ganta, PhD Co-Director, Core C       Nithya Raveendran Core Manager, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Support Facility	Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Support Facility
	Daniel C. Marcus, DSc Director, Core D	Epithelial Electrophysiology

COBRE Administrative Office

Core A supports the establishment and maintenance of the COBRE Administrative Office. The Administrative Core is headed by the PI, Dr. Daniel C. Marcus, assisted by the Manager/Administrator, Lisa Duer. This core organizes and supports the formal mentoring meetings, the External Speaker Seminar Series, the Literature Review Series and meetings of both the External Advisory Committee and the Internal Advisory Committee. The PI travels to NCRR in Bethesda MD each year to confer with NCRR staff. The Advisory Committees will consider applications for funding from additional junior investigators at the participating universities and for common-use equipment or facilities after graduation of the initial junior investigators from the COBRE.

Confocal Microfluorometry and Microscopy

Core B, the Confocal Microfluorometry and Microscopy Core facility provides instrumentation, expertise, training and mentoring in confocal microfluorometry and microscopy necessary for the advancement of COBRE research projects. Projects depend critically on microfluorometry of fast Ca²⁺ signals in cultured and native epithelial tissues, on the subcellular visualization of molecules including the 3-dimensional reconstruction of labeling, on co-localization experiments, where maximal resolution and color separation through emission fingerprinting are necessary and on advanced co-localization techniques such as FRET, for which emission scanning is critical. Instrumentation, expertise, training and mentoring will enable COBRE investigators to establish themselves through advancing their research on epithelia in health and disease.

Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Support Facility

Core C supports the establishment and maintenance of the COBRE Molecular Biology Support Facility. The Core provides: a) the interface, expertise, training and mentoring in gene array analysis necessary for the advancement of COBRE projects on different epithelia, b) equipment and support for measurement and analysis of RNA quantity & quality, c) equipment and support for quantitative, real time PCR and d) equipment and support for DNA sequencing. All projects will benefit from support by this Core facility. This facility enables COBRE investigators to establish themselves through advancing their research on epithelia in health and disease.

Epithelial Electrophysiology

Core D supports the establishment and maintenance of the COBRE Epithelial Electrophysiology Core facility. The Core provides the instrumentation, expertise, training and mentoring in epithelial electrophysiology necessary  to advance COBRE projects on different epithelia. These projects depend critically on making non-invasive current and non-radioactive ion flux measurements. Based on our expertise and experience, and with the goal to advance the mentored projects, we have identified the following equipment for this facility: 1) vibrating current-density probe, 2) self-referencing ion-selective electrodes and 3) scanning conductance probe. This instrumentation, in conjunction with the provided expertise, training and mentoring enables COBRE investigators to establish themselves through advancing their research on epithelia in health and disease.

We request that all Core Facility users include a statement of acknowledgement in their research publications. A sample statement would be:

We acknowledge the Kansas State University COBRE [Confocal Microscopy Facility] [Molecular Biology Support Core] [Epithelial Electrophysiology Facility] supported by NIH grant P20-RR017686.