Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The NSERC-funded research programs of researchers from Health Sciences, Neuroscience, and Chemistry departments of Carleton University have been hindered by the absence of a readily accessible ultracentrifuge. The original and highly innovative research programs of at least 8 early, mid-career and senior internationally-recognized scientists and their teams are compromised without availability of a modern and accessible ultracentrifuge. Key aspects of the applicants' and user's research programs rely on ultracentrifugation to study diverse biological questions. Unfortunately, the only ultracentrifuge available at Carleton is a 20+ year-old Beckman unit. A critical issue is that this current ultracentrifuge is located in the Nesbitt Biology building, approximately 0.6 km away from the buildings occupied by the teams of the applicants and users, thus limiting its access and use. The moving of samples between the buildings drastically increases opportunity for sample degradation, or is outright not possible for many experimental approaches. Furthermore, this centrifuge does not allow for advanced centrifugation protocols that are required for modern experimental approaches used by the applicants and their teams. Execution of the proposed experiments with an ultracentrifuge located in the Health Sciences Building will dramatically increase the number of experimental conditions available to the researchers as well as experimental reproducibility. This in turn will maximize data collection, reduce cost, and greatly accelerate the research of all co-applicants. In addition, availability of the powerful simulation tools and software will allow optimization of protocols before running to ensure maximum efficiency. Importantly, this will save time and samples, which is particularly critical for patient-derived samples. In this application we request funds for the acquisition of a Beckman Optima XPN-100 ultracentrifugation platform for several research groups at Carleton. The requested system is an affordable and easy-to-use ultracentrifuge with the capacity to significantly advance fundamental molecular and cellular biology research at Carleton. The additional major advantage of this platform, in particular for the proposed multiuser operations, is its customizable user log-in and programming and networking capabilities allowing for remote booking, monitoring and control. The XPN-100 will thus fill an important technological gap at our University by providing state-of-the-art centrifugation platform for our current separation, while also greatly enhancing our ability to develop new procedures. This infrastructure will also allow us to foster new research partnerships within our institution and with external collaborators locally, nationally, and internationally. Consequently, this will greatly improve the funding competitiveness of our research programs at the national and international level, enhance our research capabilities and training of HQPs.