This week we informally celebrated wrapping up the installs and training on $2M of new equipment. We went to Humble Sea Brewing Co. on Swift St on Thursday, 19 May at 4-6pm.
CSC Happy Hour
equipment
Echo acoustic dispenser installed!
We’re excited to unveil our new Echo! It’s ready to use.
It is ideal for dispensing small volumes of compounds from special 384 or 1536 format source plates to a wide variety of destination plates. It does so 2.5 nl at a time, one well at a time, in a fully programable way – it takes all the manual labor out of cherry picking, dose response curves, reformatting, making replicates, rearranging, randomizing , etc. See an informational video here. Each user will be required to have pre-arranged CSC assistance to operate this until you have run it successfully on at least 5 occasions. E-mail Beverley to arrange training, a demonstration, or pilot experiment. Here are some pics of the install in progress today.
New events calendar
We now have a Google calendar for CSC events. It will have the most up to date information about any training, seminars, etc. being offered to users. We recommend that users subscribe to the CSC calendar (and its automatic alerts), as well as the CSC Google Space to get all the up-to-date information.
We’ve had several exciting events for users in the past few weeks:
- A “lunch and learn” seminar with presentations by Beverley Rabbitts and Serena Chan from Perkin Elmer (the old flyer is below)
- Phenix user trainings in person with Robert Graves from Perkin Elmer
- Flex robot and PlateWorks training in person with Robert Graves from Perkin Elmer
- EL406 user training in person with Deanna Leung from BioTek
- Remote EnVision user training with Bill Ortiz from Perkin Elmer
The new Phenix imager is available to users!
Introducing our very exciting new acquisition: the Opera Phenix Plus confocal high content / high throughput microscope with 13 emission filter options, 4 excitation lasers, and a variety of objectives including 20x and 63x water objectives. We kicked off this new resource with two group training sessions on February 24, 2022 led by Robert Graves from Perkin Elmer. Please email Beverley Rabbitts if you want training and access.
New equipment installs in progress
The CSC revamping is in full swing here!
This is quite an epic feat happening over at PSB465! The physical facility is being upgraded for electric, networking, data storage space, and gas/vac/air, and also the impact on air temperature regulation. We have added IT infrastructure of 4 instrument controller PCs and 2 analysis workstations, with a variety of new software suites, and a new server for image data. We’ve redesigned the floorplan and have our final lab benches in place, including an Explorer G3 workstation and custom designed tables for our Phenix microscope and Flex robots. About 20 crates have crossed our threshold over the past two months, as well as about a dozen manufacturer-employed installation technicians, and a host of UCSC facilities, woodshop, electricians, net opps, and ITS people. We’ve worked with a team of UCSC purchasing agents, accountants, and receiving specialists. We have so much to be grateful for! and the fun is only just beginning.
New instrument arrivals
Starting in December and continuing through January, the CSC has been receiving our $2M of new equipment. Our new EnVision plate reader is ready to use, with time-resolved fluorescence, alpha-screen laser technology, ultrasensitive luminescence detector, internal temperature control, and other features. Stay tuned as we uncrate and install the rest!