Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Nearly all phenomena in biology are the consequences of alteration in the efficacy of molecular systems.  Therefore, quantitative analysis is of critical importance to understand and dissect basic mechanisms in molecular life sciences and diseases.  Accordingly, our research critically requires the requested imaging system for quantitative analyzes of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and proteins.  Indeed, our research program addresses key questions aimed at better understanding the multiple layers of gene regulation and to delineate molecular events associated with gene expression. Gene regulation is responsible for the control of the functional product of a gene. Any step of the gene's expression may be modulated, from DNA transcription, mRNA maturation and turnover, mRNA translation into proteins, to the post-translational modification of a protein.  For the analysis of these important regulatory steps, we use several autoradiographic and chemiluminescent approaches to precisely measure the amount, timing of changes, and modifications in DNA, RNA, and proteins.  In the past few years, high performance imaging systems have been developed to accurately measure and analyze autoradiographic and chemiluminescent approaches and enable researchers to elucidate unresolved cellular mechanisms.  The acquisition of the requested imaging system for DNA, RNA, and proteins is critical to our research, and is therefore expected to provide fundamental advancement in the understanding of several regulatory steps of gene expression.