General Procedures
Requests for procedures or training in the ultrasound facility should be directed to the Ultrasound Core Coordinator, Rohan Varshney (rohan-varshney@omrf.org). Requests for all other procedures or training should be directed to the Core Coordinator, Michael McDaniel (michael-mcdaniel@omrf.org).
Applications for metabolic assays are requested at least 2 days in advance. Blood cell and chemistry analyses are walk-in based on a first-come and first-served principle. However, urgent requests for Core services will be accommodated, given availability of instrument time. Should scheduling conflicts occur, the Core Coordinator and the requesting scientists will adjudicate the schedule of work, giving priority to the experiments needed for pending grant and manuscript submissions.
The Core centralizes its equipment in two locations: The ultrasound facility is in a designated room fully equipped for surgical procedures in the OMRF Research Tower animal facility. It has isoflurane nose cones connected with the ECG and respiration gating electrode stage in the VisualSonics rail system. The metabolic screening system is in an adjacent room in the Tower facility. These rooms have access to a mouse holding room to assist investigators from other institutions. All other instruments, including a hematology analyzer and a blood chemistry analyzer, are located in a shared equipment room on the 6th floor of the OMRF Research Tower. In the same area, the Core has a well-equipped surgical suite for terminal procedures.
Upon service completion, an electronic bill will be sent to COBRE and non-COBRE users (COBRE investigators will be billed but not charged for record keeping during the Phase III funding). When the user signs a bill and indicates the specific account number, it will be sent to Financial Services for fund transfer. The Core Coordinator will facilitate this. At this time, we will elicit feedback from requestors to address quality control issues as part of the billing process and provide responses.
Training
The Core Director will train staff in different ultrasound analyses. Core staff will participate in relevant webinars annually to stay abreast of novel methods of ultrasound analysis of cardiovascular phenotypes in model organisms. Core personnel will also train investigators in use of other Core instruments and in interpretation of data.
