Preclinical research
Animal and cellular models, biomarker discovery and analysis.
Biomolecular Core
Based in: QMRI as part of SuRF
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Pamela Brown
Biomolecular Core can revolutionize your research by providing access to state-of-the-art techniques and procedures. They are experts in:
- Quantitative real-time PCR
- Manipulation of lentiviral vectors including overexpression and knockdown of gene expression
- Fluorescence scanning
Bioresearch and Veterinary Services (BVS) Central Transgenic Core
Serving researchers within all BVS animal facilities at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine , Chancellor’s Building and Western General Hospital
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Martha Koerner
The BVS Central Transgenic Core generates novel transgenic or genome-edited mouse and rat lines by microinjection or electroporation. They cryopreserve sperm and embryos of genetically altered lines from all BVS rodent facilities for long term storage, export to collaborators and future rederivation.
The rederivation service can be used to revive lines frozen internally or imported from external sources, or to remove unwanted pathogens present in a breeding colony.
British Heart Foundation (BHF) Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory
Based in: QMRI
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Takeshi Fujisawa
The BHF-supported Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory offers secure receipt, processing, archiving, shipment, and analysis of clinical samples. Secure sample storage is also available.
The facility participates in the UKNEQAS (UK National External Quality Assessment Service) External Quality Assessment for Cardiac Biomarkers scheme (hsTnI and NT-proBNP) and offers a range of cardiac biomarkers and clinical chemistry assays on an Abbott ARCHITECT ci4100 Integrated Analyser. They obtained ACCORD accreditation in 2021 and can analyse locally sponsored clinical trial samples.
BHF Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory website
Genetics Core of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (ECRF)
Based in: Institute for Genetics and Cancer (IGC) but serving researchers across the College.
Facility manager/ lead contact: Mr Lee Murphy
The Genetics Core team can provide support for clinical research from sample collection to genetic analysis, working to the principles of Good Clinical Practice for Laboratories.
Host and tumour profiling unit (HTPU): microarray services
Based in: Institute of Genetics & Cancer (IGC)
Facility manager/ lead contact: Alison Munro and Kenneth Macleod
This service provides protein, antibody and transcriptomic microarray facilities for the analysis of complex signalling pathways and secreted factors across multiple pre-clinical and clinical sample types:
- NanoString nCounter - highly sensitive profiling of hundreds of mRNAs, microRNAs, SNVs, CNVs or protein using colour-coded molecular barcodes to provide a digital count of target molecules. Optimised for difficult sample types including FFPE, tissue and lysate samples.
- Reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) - a sensitive antibody based proteomic approach enabling simultaneous quantification of multiple proteins and post-translational modifications. Our portfolio of antibodies covers key cancer survival, cell cycle and canonical signalling pathways that can be used to profile multiple pathway responses.
- Forward phase antibody microarrays (cytokine arrays) - utilises well-validated capture/detection antibody pairs for the relative quantification of secreted factors associated with inflammation and angiogenesis i.e chemokines/cytokine/adipokines.
The facilities are available to all within the University of Edinburgh, and to external groups through funded collaboration or fee-for-service contract. The NanoString service obtained ACCORD Accreditation in 2021 and can analyse locally sponsored clinical trial samples.
HTPU Microarray Services website
Specialist Assay Laboratory
Based in: Queen's Medical Research Institute (QMRI) as part of SuRF
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Kirsten Wilson
The Specialist Assay Laboratory has three focuses to the service:
- We offer several in-house steroid hormone ELISAs which can be used in a range of matrices and species, and we can provide expertise to run commercial kits alongside offering advice on kit selection.
- Additionally, we have three automated analysers. There is a primary focus on measuring liver, kidney and cardiovascular parameters with these analysers; serum LFTs are the most popular set of tests for the facility. Our Roche e411 Analyser is designer for automated immunoassays and is ideal for testing large numbers of samples; kits are available for a wide range of applications on this technology.
- We have experience with a range of sample matrices (serum, plasma, saliva, urine, cell/tissue culture media) and have analysed from a range of species, including wild and exotic animals such as giant panda, polar bear, koala, tiger and skate.
Specialist Assay Laboratory website