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Core Facilities and Services
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| What are Core Facilities and Services? |
Biomedical Science Tower |
| Bioinformatics |
Flow Cytometry |
| Histopathology/Immunohistochemistry |
Human Immunology and Immunologic Monitoring |
| Literature Database |
The Liver Serum Bank |
| Microscopy |
Pharmacokinetics and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring |
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| What are Core Facilities and Services? |
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The Starzl Transplantation Institute's Core Facilities offer broad-based support and services to its clinical, research, academic, and administrative areas. This consolidation of skills, resources, and technologies makes them readily available to all STI researchers, and allows for a standardized product across laboratories. Each core facility provides services to some or all of STI's components.
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| Biomedical Science Tower |
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The majority of the STI's Core Facilities are housed in a 17-floor, purpose-built research facility. Institute investigators conduct much of their laboratory research in the Institute's research facilities on the 15th floor.
The building features eight levels of flexible, modular laboratory space that can undergo major alterations within a few days to adapt to continuously evolving research needs. Typically, labs in the Biomedical Science Tower are sized at 400 and 600 square feet. However, removing walls between rooms allows up to 2,400 feet of lab space. This innovative design earned Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates high honors in the 1991 Laboratory of the Year Award presented by Research & Development Magazine. Additional renovations, to be completed by April of 2007, are currently underway to modernize the laboratories, increase the efficiency of space usage, and ensure maximum interactions between investigators. |
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| Bioinformatics |
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Health-care decisions have become complex. Decisions in health care can be particularly challenging involving a complex web of diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainties, patient preferences and values, and costs. Decision Analysis as a discipline is a systematic approach toward decision-making under uncertainty and naturally suited for the clinical setting. The Bioinformatics Core provides continual support to all physicians, administrators, and researchers of STI in their clinical, academic, operational and research efforts by conducting outcome and Health-Care decision-making research.
Patient and data management are key to our efforts in clinical care, research, and analysis. As a result, we have implemented a revolutionary computer application designed specifically for transplant centers. Called the Electronic Database Interface for Transplantation© (EDIT), the system fosters quick access to accurate patient information, streamlining the retrieval and processing of diagnostic test results and other medical information and, ultimately, allowing nurses and physicians to deliver patient care effectively and efficiently. The software, which features immediate online data access to all physicians and staff, also integrates report writers, and other systems. The development and implementation of EDIT is conducted by the STI Medical Informatics Team, which also provides access to biostatisticians to monitor statistical standards and ensure quality control of data. A major goal is to develop compatibility with national and international data collection systems and registries, such as UNOS and the International Collaborative Transplant Registry.
The bioinformatics section is co-headed by a Director of Biostatistics and Director of STI Medical Informatics. The Director of STI Informatics constantly monitors the quality of information in the EDIT database. The Director of Biostatistics monitors clinical research, decision analysis and statistical analysis.
For more information, please contact:
Nickie K. Cappella
(412) 647-5143
cappellank@upmc.edu |
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| Flow Cytometry |
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Flow Cytometry has become a powerful tool in biomedical research. The measurement of cells' physical properties (relative size and complexity) and fluorescence intensity in a single-cell suspension provides a wide range of applications in clinical diagnosis, high-throughput pharmaceutical drug discovery, and basic science. These applications include immunophenotyping, cell cycle analysis, cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell tracking, functional dye efflux, and more.
The missions of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute (STI) Flow Cytometry Core Facility are to introduce advanced flow cytometry technology, provide educational opportunities and training programs to researchers, work in collaboration with researchers to generate high-quality data, and develop new applications to meet scientific demands.
The STI facility is equipped with one of the most advanced high-speed cell sorters, capable of detecting 16 parameters with five-laser excitation simultaneously and performing a maximum of four-way sorting and single cell deposition. The facility has acquired an AutoMACS (Miltenyi Biotec) for simple and fast automatic magnetic-based cell separation or enrichment. The facility also possesses two bench-top cytometers: a BD LSR II (capable of detecting a maximum of eight colors with a three-laser excitation simultaneously), and a Beckman Coulter XL-MCL (capable of detecting a maximum of four colors with one-laser excitation). A variety of software including WinList, BD FACS Diva, FlowJo, and ModFit and BD Cytometric Bead Array software is installed on an analysis work-station for offline data analysis.
This facility is open to the University of Pittsburgh research community. Priority will be given to researchers at STI. Trained STI researchers will have unlimited access to the facility (24 hours a day, seven days a week).
Documents below provide additional information. If you have any further questions, please contact:
Hongmei Shen, Ph.D.
(412) 624-9998
shenh@upmc.edu |
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Contact Information and Scheduling
Instruments and Features
Guidelines for LSR II and XL Users
Guidelines for High-Speed Cell Sorter Users
Fees
Policies
Useful Links
Biosafety Questionnaire Form
New User Form
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| Histopathology/Immunohistochemistry |
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This laboratory provides developmental and specialized testing for clinical research specimens and provides services routinely available in clinical laboratories. The facility supports basic and translational research needs in the development of new treatment modalities, as well basic and clinical research projects.
For more information, please contact:
Lisa Chedwick
(412) 624-6603
chedlr@upmc.edu |
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Research Histology Services
RHS Price List
Accession Order Form
Specimen Identification Form
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| Human Immunology and Immunologic Monitoring |
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This core facility provides the facilities and expertise for immunologic monitoring in animal research and clinical trials. The tests performed here aid in monitoring rejection and development of tolerance, while increasing understanding of basic immune mechanisms.
Cellular immunity is tested using in vitro assays measuring proliferation, cytotoxicity, and cytokine production by the immune cells. Humoral immunity is tested using state-of-the-art solid assays that detect the presence of HLA-specific alloantibodies.
For more information, please contact:
Beth Elinoff, RN, MPH, CCRC
Human Immunology Research Coordinator
(412) 624-6611
fax (412) 624-6666
elinoffbd@upmc.edu |
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Basics of Clinical Research
Blank Research Outline
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| Literature Database |
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Visitors to this site can access lists of STI faculty interests, as well as complete summaries of their publications. You may search for this information in two different ways:
1) From the Faculty Page, pick a faculty member and click on the link to his or her Faculty Research Interests Project (FRIP) page. This will pull up a list of that faculty member's major and auxiliary interests. To see the faculty member's publications, click the link on the right side of his or her FRIP page that reads "Selected PubMed". The publications will open in a new window and appear in reverse chronological order.
2) Visit the FRIP search page. You can search the index by interest, faculty member name, or school (for example, the faculty members listed on this site would all be found under the Department of Surgery). Use any combination of these three criteria to refine your search. |
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| The Liver Serum Bank |
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The Liver Serum Bank is a collection of over 3,000 serum samples from liver transplant candidates representing the entire spectrum of liver diseases. Dr. Paolo Fontes serves as Principal Investigator, and the bank is maintained in collaboration with the Division of Transplant Pathology.
The samples are aliquoted and stored at -80°C and date back to 1997. This ongoing IRB approved Serum Bank is available to researchers investigating liver diseases. Access to specimens requires prior IRB approval.
Most samples are from pre-transplant subjects; there are at least 40 paired pre- and post-transplant samples from transplant subjects and approximately 30 white cell samples that have corresponding serum samples.
For more information about the Liver Serum Bank, or to access the materials for your own research, please contact:
Lorrie Esch
(412) 647-3169
eschdm2@upmc.edu |
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| Microscopy |
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The microscopy core of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute is equipped with a bright-field and fluorescence microscope (Nikon Eclipse E 800) and an inverted fluorescence microscope. The microscopes are equipped with appropriate filters that allow one to perform up to four-color fluorescence imaging of tissue sections or cytospins and with a cooled CCD camera and computer software capable of acquiring, storing and editing high resolution images of the specimens. The faculty and staff of the Starzl Institute also have access to the Center for Biological Imaging, directed by Dr. Simon C. Watkins, Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, University of Pittsburgh (http://www.cbi.pitt.edu/), to perform more sophisticated imaging techniques (e.g., confocal and two-photon intravital microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and immuno-electron-microscopy).
For more information, please contact:
Adrian Morelli, M.D., Ph.D.
(412) 624-2193
morelli@imap.pitt.edu |
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| Pharmacokinetics and Therapeutic Drug Monitoring |
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This laboratory participates in both clinical and basic science research. In addition to supporting ongoing clinical trials, its functions include developing new drug monitoring assays and providing pharmacokinetic profiles of immunosuppressive drugs and other drugs used in transplant patients. The facility utilizes laboratories located in the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and the Biomedical Science Tower.
For more information, please contact:
Raman Venkataramanan , Ph.D.
(412) 648-8547
rv@pitt.edu
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