Are you interested in the advantages of high throughput robotically-controlled assays and screens? Do you want to use our “Lamborghini of confocal microscopes” for live cells, organoids, or other imaging studies? Or perhaps you have an application for our freshly purchased chemical compound collections? Well, you’re in luck because, thanks to a donation from the Office of Research, the CSC is welcoming in-house applications for seed funds to facilitate exciting new projects!

—The Application Process—

Applications are done via this Google form. Awards will be announced by November 20, 2023. Following award notice, the team will meet (professor, trainee, and CSC staff), the experiment details will be agreed upon, and a formal quote for the planned work will be generated. The experiments may then commence immediately, subject to the availability of the trainee and CSC staff, and the funds must be expended by May 31, 2024.

—Eligibility—

The applicant must either be a UCSC professor, or a current member of a UCSC professor’s research lab, who has prior permission from the professor to fill out the form. The project must be assigned to a member of the professor’s lab, who will get trained during the course of the experiments, and who will be primarily responsible for planning and executing the experiments, taking notes, and analyzing the results, with the assistance of CSC staff. Individuals can make multiple submissions for consideration.

—Budget—

Awards within the range of $2,000 – $10,000 may be requested. We anticipate awarding 5-10 awards.

The seed funds will be applied to offset recharges incurred at the CSC. This includes recharges for staff time, instrument time, bioinformatics workstations, and compound libraries. The awardee will be allowed to charge a total of less than 20% of the award for purchases of disposables (microplates, reagents, solvents) associated with the proposed experiments.

The award will not cover other projects, follow-up studies, experiments otherwise not described in the application, recharges for other facilities, or salary for the trainees involved.

Depending on the complexity of the project, the seed fund could be enough to cover assay development/pilot experiment and a medium-scale screen. If you already have an assay working, the seed funds could cover a high throughput screen. We offer robots to automate sample prep, multiple analytical mechanisms, and different types of compound libraries.

We welcome any questions about our resources, workflows, and prices to help you develop your application.