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I M B a n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 2
Table of Contents
Foreword
Research Groups
Core Facilities
Facts and Figures
25
Bernhard Korn
Director of Core Facilities and Technology
Overview
The Core Facilities at IMB are set up to
allow IMB Research Groups smooth, fast and
economical access to up-to-date technologies
that are supported by in-depth expertise from
dedicated service personnel. The remit of the
Core Facilities is completely driven by demand
for in-house research facilities, and they
ensure a short turn-around time from initial
project discussions to sample supply and the
return of data. Service groups are only set up
if the highest quality of service and a high
demand for the facility can be foreseen. Therefore,
we make sure that investments are made
in the most efficient way. All Core Facility
personnel are dedicated to both service
and training. The Core Facilities provide equal
access to all IMB members on a first-comefirst-serve
basis and access is provided as
a service or through collaborative research
projects.
The set-up of strong in-house Core Facilities
allows all IMB groups to undertake ambitious
projects with high-throughput designs. Project
support is provided from the initial phase of
grant applications (e.g. feasibility studies,
consulting, application support), via experimental
design and experimentation, to data
management and analysis. Core Facility support
is provided in various ways. Full service is
given for next-generation-sequencing (NGS),
microarray analysis and cell sorting. In these
cases IMB members provide samples, which
are quality controlled by the Core Facilities,
and a complete service is then provided up
to the point of data production. Basic data
analysis is also conducted to ensure good
quality and accuracy of the information being
returned to the in-house user. To be able
to offer this type of cutting-edge service,
we have entered into cooperations with other
academic institutes such as EMBL and
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Publicprivate
partnerships have also been initiated
such as the establishment of IMB as a reference
centre for high-resolution microscopy
with Leica microsystems. A very strong part
of the Core Facilities covers informatics of
various flavours, from basic front-end IT
support, server administration and intranet
provision, to bioinformatics, statistics and ondemand
programming.
Whenever possible, IMB outsources services
as long as sufficient quality and a fast turnaround
time can be guaranteed by external
providers. However, for strategic reasons
we keep certain technologies and their development
in-house so that we can provide
sufficient capacity, training and education to
IMB students and personnel in these areas.
We also provide assisted access to equipment
and facilities within IMB. In this respect the
Cytometry, Genomics, Histology and Microscopy
Core Facilities provide specific training
and assistance in the use of their equipment.
Furthermore, Core Facility personnel provide
training courses for the use of any other Core
Equipment that is available at IMB, e.g. plate
readers, ultra centrifuges etc. Finally, the Core
Facilities provide a wide range of additional
support, encompassing a media kitchen,
animal care, management of in-house
enzymes and clone/vector/cell line storage.