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ISTM invests in the latest imaging equipment
Fifteen members of the Research Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine now have access to the latest imaging equipment for their experiments, thanks to £45,000 committed from the Faculty of Health’s HEFCE capital funds and ISTM’s EPSRC Doctoral Training Account.
The new Flurochem M equipment provides chemiluminescent, ultraviolet, fluorescent and white light imaging and analysis. The principal use of this is for visualizing gel- based experiments, such as “Western Blots”, DNA gels and electromobility shift assays. As the ISTM research groups are based in laboratories in the Guy Hilton Research Centre at Hartshill and in the Huxley Building on Keele campus, it was decided to buy two identical machines - not quite “two-for-the-price-of-one” but a significant saving was achieved on the normal price by buying and commissioning two at the same time – one in the Genomics suite at GHRC under the guidance of Dr Alan Richardson and the other in the Haldane Laboratory managed by Dr Paul Horrocks.
Leading the group that bid for the equipment, Dr Alan Richardson, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, said “Several of the applicants conduct gel-based experiments on a daily basis and it is not feasible to routinely transport gels or blots between sites with this frequency. We’d already had a demonstration of the Flurochem M and found it capable of performing the applications we intend it for. The purchase price was significantly reduced because we proposed purchasing two instruments., to allow us to place one at each site. It also improves the purchase power of the capital equipment fund.”
The key advantages of the modern system over previous methods used at Keele are the reduced cost of reagents, time saving though less dark-room time, and much more efficient storage of the results. ISTM research students, including those on the Doctoral Training Centre in Regenerative Medicine, will also benefit from training on the latest equipment.
In the photo above Dr Alan Richardson and PhD student Elizabeth Robinson stand with the equipment newly installed in the Guy Hilton Research Centre. To the right is shown an example of a Western Blot already produced.
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