Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

We request critical equipment for reliable high-throughput quantification of nuclear molecules - namely, a QIAxcel Advanced System (Qiagen) for automated analysis of nucleic acid integrity and size, and a CFX Opus384 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection System (Bio-Rad) for accurate and precise quantification of target DNA and RNA. Together with a package of essential support equipment that forms a comprehensive, integrated system of operation, this request will significantly enhance capacity at Western University's highly successful facility for Molecular studies in Biodiversity, Ecology and Environmental Sciences (MoBEES). MoBEES is a core facility in the Department of Biology that supports research and training through a longstanding collaboration between the co-applicants to share equipment and expertise. The research programs supported by MoBEES cover a range of areas in evolution and ecology that advance our understanding of the natural world, particularly as it relates to life in Canada. The research enabled by this equipment request includes plant innate defenses against pathogens (Bernards), ecoimmunology and behavioural ecology of migratory birds (MacDougall-Shackleton), ecophysiology of plants (Macfie), genetics of behaviour and species formation (Moehring), evolutionary ecology and conservation of fishes (Neff), molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis (Percival-Smith), thermal physiology of insects (Sinclair), microbial ecology and evolution (Tai), behavioural genetics and sociobiology of insects (Thompson), molecular ecology of fungi (Thorn), and developmental and cell biology (Timoshenko), all of which regularly capture interest of the public, as well as from government and industry. MoBEES is therefore an active community research hub that specifically helps us to isolate, amplify, characterize and digitally document RNA and DNA from a variety of life forms. Our MoBEES team is diverse in composition - that is, with respect to career-stage, place of origin and gender - but is united by an urgent need for new equipment to support reliable high-throughput quantification of nuclear molecules for research and training. For example, the QIAxcel Advanced System will greatly improve RNA preparations by enabling rapid, multi-sample (96-well plate) measurements of RNA integrity. This, in turn, would enable genome / transcriptome sequencing and qantitative PCR and the latter could now be performed in-house by the CFX Opus 384 Real-Time PCR Detection System. In combination, the dual function of these two state-of-the art research tools, together with our departmentally supported, full-time operations manager of the MoBEES facility, will integrate the ecological, evolutionary and functional genomic aspects of our research and define a new era in the MoBEES training program.