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

This is a proposal from 8 NSERC funded researchers to acquire a laser capture micro dissection unit to be incorporated into a core microscopy facility within the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa. Laser capture micro dissection is a recent innovation that allows specific cells, cell organelles or clusters of cells to be excised from heterogeneous tissues.  Captured material can be processed for a variety of downstream applications including measurements of mRNA, DNA and protein.  Such analyses performed after isolation of the individual cell types from complex tissues will provide valuable information on genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic regulation that otherwise would be masked by the background "noise" of surrounding cells.  The scientists requesting this equipment will apply this powerful technique to a variety of research topics including regulation of brain metabolism and mechanisms of oxygen sensing.