RBL Frequently Asked Questions
What are our main areas of Focus?
What type of research services can we provide?
Can we accommodate cGLP or cGMP studies?
What animal capabilities, including species and containment level(s), do we have?
What animal models, including species, disease, and delivery method do we have?
What are our imaging capabilities?
Answers
What are our main areas of Focus?
- To test and evaluate small molecules, vaccines, and diagnostics to protect the general population from infectious diseases and bioterrorism.
- To develop small animal models for testing.
How to get started?
Please visit our Getting Started page and fill out our service inquiry form. You may also contact the RBL Director (Colleen Jonsson), Associate Director (Elizabeth Fitzpatrick) or Program Manager (Dong Yang) for further information.
Who can use this resource?
Investigators in academia, not-for-profit organizations, industry, and government studying biodefense and emerging infectious diseases may request the use of biocontainment laboratories.
What type of research services can we provide?
- Animal Models of Infection, including aerosol delivery
- Pathogen Discovery: Animal, Human and Environmental Samples
- Host Biomarker Discovery: Most Omic Technologies available
- Immunology services: Flow cytometry, cell sorting, multiplex bead array system (Luminex).
- Pathology services: Sample collection, necropsy, tissue harvest and processing.
- Virology Services: seed stocks, TCID50, plaque assay, virus isolation, in vitro small molecule discovery
- Microbiology services.
Can we accommodate cGLP or cGMP studies?
Yes, we are cGLP capable and operational in one ABSL-2 or ABSL-3 suite.
What animal capabilities, including species and containment level(s), do we have?
- Containment available at ABSL2 and ABSL3
- Mice
- Rats
- Cotton rat
- Guinea pigs
- Hamsters
- Ferrets
- Other small animals- on request
What animal models, including species, disease, and delivery method do we have?
Models with mice:
- Borrelia burgdorferi (laboratory and clinical strains); Transdermal via needle and tick (Ixodes scapularis) challenge
- Burkholderia pseudomallei; aerosol, intranasal, intradermal
- Francesialla tularensis (aerosol, intranasal, intradermal)
- Leptospira interrogans; Intraperitoneal, conjunctival, transdermal
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis (aerosol and intranasal)
- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcal aureus
- Staphylococcus aureus (laboratory and clinical strains)
- Streptococcus pneumoniae (laboratory and clinical strains)
- Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula
- Influenza BSL-2 strains (aerosol and intranasal)
- Old World hantaviruses
- Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (SARS CoV)
- Middle-East respiratory syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV)
- Respiratory Syncytial virus (intranasal)
- Venezuelan equine encephalitis viruses (subcutaneous and intranasal)
- Western equine encephalitis viruses (subcutaneous and intranasal)
- Eastern equine encephalitis viruses (subcutaneous and intranasal)
- Other- available on request
Models with ferret:
- Influenza BSL-2 strains (intranasal)
- Influenza HPAI BSL-3 strains (intranasal)
- SARS CoV BSL-3 strains (intranasal)
What are our imaging capabilities?
- Xenogen IVIS spectrum
Major equipment available?
- Illumina MiSEQ
- BD FACS Aria flow cytometer/cell sorter
- CH Technologies nose-only bioaerosol generator (BANG, mice only)
- Luminex -LX200
- Luminex MagPix
- IVIS Spectrum
- Perkin Elmer High throughput Janus Robots (one in BSL2, one in BSL3)
- Perkin Elmer Envision plate readers (one in BSL2, one in BSL3)
- BioTek MultiFlo FX Multi-Mode Dispenser (one in BSL2, one in BSL3)
- BioTek Synergy 2
- Applied Biosystems Quant Studio 6 plex
- Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer
- DiaSys Xpedite HEM VET Hematology Analyzer
- DiaSys Respons 910 Clinical Chemistry Analyzer
Other UTHSC Shared Resources:
- Proteomic MS facility
- Solid deep sequencing systems
- Affymetrix-based global transcriptomic facility
- Confocal microscopy
- Transmission and scanning EM facility
- BXD Mice platform
- Gnotobiotic mouse facility