Grant Acknowledgement
IDEAL
The authors thank the Centre for High-Throughput Chemical Biology (HTCB) at SFU for access to core facilities, which are supported by grants from the Glyconet Networks of Centres of Excellence, Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and British Columbia Knowledge Development Foundation (BCKDF).
CONDENSED
The authors thank the Centre for High-Throughput Chemical Biology (HTCB) at SFU for access to core facilities.
Grant Text
The Chemical Screening Center includes all of the required facilities for high-throughput and high-content screening campaigns, including:
1) Tissue culture facility: for cell preparation including biosafety cabinets (1 x 4’, 1 x 6’), incubators, bench space and other small equipment.
2) Compound management facility: Separate room containing liquid handling robots for plate replication and preparation of compound dilution series, barcoding system for plate labeling, LIMS interface for compound tracking and fridges and freezers for compound storage.
3) Main screening facility: A separate room containing the main screening platform, comprising a HEPA-filtered enclosure housing: 5-axis robot for plate delivery, Cytomat plate incubators, liquid handling robot for compound pinning/ delivery, plate sealer, plate desealer, plate washer, plate reader with transmittance, fluorescence, luminescence capability, image-based high-throughput fluorescence microscope system, plate transporters, integrated data acquisition computer system, networked data storage servers.
4) Data analysis facility: A separate room containing data analysis computers containing all relevant software packages and high-speed network infrastructure directly connected to SFU's data storage servers.
Together these facilities provide SFU researchers with all required hardware to perform high-throughput screening campaigns. In addition, the center is staffed by a full-time screening specialist who is available to aid with experimental design, and training of HQP in use of the robotics and analysis of the resulting data.
SFU Chemical Screening Center (Shared Equipment)
A consortium at SFU was awarded two Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) grants to equip a new chemical screening center in 2018. This center (the Centre for High-Throughput Chemical Biology, (HTCB)) houses a dedicated compound management facility, separate tissue culture facility, and a main screening room containing: a fully automated screening platform including a 4-axis plate management robot, 96/384 well screening deck, automated transmittance/ fluorescence/ luminescence plate reader, plate washer, plate sealer/ desealer, automated plate incubators and a fluorescence automated high content microscope for image based screening, including live cell imaging. This center includes a dedicated data processing suite housed in a separate computer room, full informatics and data storage support, and is managed by a full-time screening specialist.
The HTCB is housed in Technology and Science building II (1100 and 900 ft2 rooms), and is available on a recharge basis. Users of the center are provided with full robotic liquid handling support, including a fulltime Ph.D. level staff position.
Screening System:
Thermo HEPA-filtered enclosure (3.6 m x 3.5 m)
Thermo Spinnaker 4-axis plate handling robot
Tecan Evo 100 liquid handling system with RoMa and MCA-96 arms, and V&P Scientific pin tools
Thermo Cytomat automated incubator (2)
Thermo room temperature plate hotel
Molecular Devices Image Xpress high content microscope (2)
Biotek Neo plate reader (transmittance, fluorescence, luminescence, FRET)
BioTek 406L combined plate loader/ washer with 3 loading channels
Thermo combi plate loaders (2)
Agilent PlateLoc plate sealer
Brooks XPeel plate de-sealer
Agilent Vspin centrifuge
Compound Management:
The Center for High Throughput Chemical Biology houses both commercial compound libraries an microbial natural products libraries. The commercial collection includes >100,000 compounds, while the natural products collection includes 7,000 extracts containing an estimated 25,000 natural product structures.
Tecan Evo 150 liquid handler with RoMa, MCA-96 and LiHa arms, and V&P Scientific pin tools
Tecan room temperature carousel
Agilent Barcode printer and labeler
Vworks 2R plate transporter
Thermo -80 freezers (x2)
Thermo -150 freezer
Tissue Culture Facility:
Bio safety cabinets (x2, 1 x 4', 1 x 6')
Microscope
Thermo Incubators
Thermo fridge/ freezer
Small equipment