Bioassay Core

The Bioassay Core provides equipment, personnel, and protocols for routine and advanced cellular and molecular assays for research.

Key Features

• Are you a clinical or other investigator who does not have access to a fully equipped research laboratory? We can help you conduct basic and translational research experiments by providing key personnel and infrastructure. We help you design the experiment, interpret the data, and prepare figures for grant submissions and manuscripts.
• Do you need access to state-of-the-art equipment for imaging, multiplex immunoassays, cell washing, or automated cell sorting? We can provide that equipment to you as self-service, or provide full-service with personnel to conduct the experiments.
• We have basic equipment like centrifuges for obtaining serum/plasma and sterile space for preparation of samples for PCR. You can use these as self-service.
• Do you want to obtain cardiomyocytes isolated from human heart tissue? Tissues collected by the Nebraska Cardiovascular Biobank and Registry are preserved in a manner suitable for cell isolation, so contact us if you would like to explore opportunities that leverage our state-of-the-art cell isolation method.
• Do you need access to equipment for solubilization and homogenization of tough samples, like heart tissue and vessels? We have specialized equipment and protocols to help you maximize recovery of biological molecules from these cell types for downstream molecular analyses.

Examples of Services and Equipment

• Automated, high-throughput preparation (labeling, washing) of cells for flow cytometry analysis using the Curiox Laminar Wash system.
• Multiplex immunoassays: Meso Scale Discovery Quickplex 120 and Luminex Bio-Plex MAGPIX Multiplex Reader.
• Multiplex immunofluorescence, brightfield imaging, and in situ hybridization using the Mantra Quantitative Pathology Imaging System and Agilent Biotech Lionheart FX automated microscope.
• Immunoblot imaging and Proteome Profiler Assays (membrane-based sandwich immunoassays) with the iBright FL1000 Imaging System.
• Automated sample handling using the Eppendorf epMotion 5073m automated liquid handling workstation, Opentrons OT2 automated liquid handling workstation, and Tecan A200 positive pressure workstation.
• Molecular Devices SpectraMax M3 multi-mode microplate reader.
• Magnetic-based cell sorting using the Miltenyi Biotec autoMACs Pro Separator.
• Automated immunoblotting using the iBind Flex western devices.
• Sample homogenization using the Omni International Bead Ruptor Elite with Cryo Unit.