News and Updates | Core Facilities

UNC Represented Among Attendees and Poster Presenters at ABRF 2023

The Association of Biomedical Research Facilities (ABRF) national meeting was held May 7-10 in Boston, MA. UNC was well represented with nine attendees from several different core facilities and core support organizations represented. Additionally, UNC core affiliates fielded three posters. Dr. Patricia Basta, of the BioSpecimen Processing Facility presented two posters. One, a research poster entitled … Continued

Dr. Venkata R Chirasani named new director for R.L. Juliano Structural Bioinformatics core

Dr. Venkata R Chirasani, R.L. Juliano Structural Bioinformatics core director Dr. Venkata R Chirasani will be joining as the director of R.L. Juliano Structural Bioinformatics core facility at UNC-Chapel Hill on May 1st, 2023. Dr. Chirasani is an expert in molecular modeling and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of proteins and protein-ligand complexes, and … Continued

Cryo-EM Core awarded a North Carolina Biotechnology Center innovation Impact Grant

Joshua Strauss, Ph.D., Director UNC Cryo-EM Core News contributed by Emily Robinson, Research Technician, UNC Cryo-EM Core The UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine’s Cryo Electron Microscopy Core is excited to announce that were awarded North Carolina Biotechnology Center Innovation Impact Grant (GII) for the acquisition of a Thermo-Fischer Scientific (TFS) micro-crystal electron … Continued

OSP Issues Statement on RSC Rate Increases

See below information from the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) concerning RSC rate increases. If your core’s rates are increasing or you receive pushback from.a customer about rate increases, you may wish to refer customers to the following: The University administers Research Service Centers (RSC/Core Facilities) according to Federal costing standards, as well as State and … Continued

New article on the role of core facilities in environmental sustainability co-authored by Dr. Chris Gregory from ORT

Congrats to ORT’s own Dr. Christopher Gregory on the publication of : “Addressing the Environmental Impact of Science Through a More Rigorous, Reproducible, and Sustainable Conduct of Research” in the Journal of Biomolecular Technique. The importance of core facilities can be felt far beyond the research enterprise. This article highlights the role core facilities/shared resources … Continued

Damania and Dittmer Featured for Research on How Cancer-Causing Viruses Evade Immune Responses

UNC Health’s News Room recently highlighted a Nature Communications article authored by our own Blossom Damania, PhD (Vice Dean for Research in the School of Medicine and Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Immunology) and Dirk Dittmer, PhD (Director of the Vironomics Core and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology). The original article is copied below. … Continued

Save the Date: MAD SSCi 2023 hosted at UNC Chapel Hill

The MAD SSCi Conference is right around the corner! Registration for the 2023 conference will open soon. The theme of this year’s meeting will be “Cultivating Collaboration”. Meeting features include an opening reception at the Friday Conference Center, a Keynote lecture, two plenary lectures, scientific topic sessions, core administrative sessions, round table discussions, vendor talks, exhibit … Continued

Michelle Itano, PhD Receives CZI Grant to Help Train the Next Generation of Imaging Scientists

Michelle Itano, PhD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s Department of Cell Biology and Physiology and director of the Neuroscience Microscopy Core at the UNC Neuroscience Center. Michelle Itano, PhD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, is one of ten co-principal investigators … Continued

Core Facility Showcase Event

Over 40 core facilities will be participating in a core facility showcase event! Tuesday October 11, 2022 in Koury Oral Health Sciences Building 11 am – 1:30 pm Participating cores will have staff on hand to discuss the services they provide, your specific research projects, and exciting incoming technology. at lu Several cores will … Continued

UNC Neuroscience Microscopy Core forms “Partner in Microscopy” with Leica Microsystems

Dr. Michelle Itano, director of the UNC School of Medicine Neuroscience Center’s Microscopy Core, has launched a first-of-its-kind partnership with Leica Microsystems. This new Partner in Microscopy relationship offers unique opportunities for collaboration and feedback between UNC researchers and Leica Microsystems. The partnership was launched September 20, 2022. Congratulations to Dr. Itano, the Neuroscience … Continued

Congrats to the NRI’s Precision Nutrition Core on CLIA Certification!

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. – September 1, 2022 – The UNC Nutrition Research Institute is pleased to announce that its laboratory directed by Saroja Voruganti, PhD, has been granted a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certification, allowing its lab to conduct Human DNA genotyping as a service for other researchers, scientists, and professionals in private and public industries.The … Continued

UNC Featured in New JBT Article about Rigor, Reproducibility, and Transparency in Shared Research Resources

Congratulations to our own Chris Gregory, Director in the Office of Research Technologies, who co-authored this publication. In 2017, the Association of Biomedical Research Facilities (ABRF) launched an initiative to specifically support rigor, reproducibility, and transparency (RR&T) in research within core facilities alongside NIH and NSF efforts more broadly. This new paper looks at … Continued