Policies

Core Facility Resource Grant Insert 

The UNMC Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility provides a safe and secure resource for qualified researchers, to better understand Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility organisms and the associated infectious diseases for the improvement health outcomes. There are five well-equipped working suites available to authorized Principal Investigators (PIs) and their associated staff on a first-come, first-served basis. This facility has many valuable features to meet the needs of the researcher. In addition, on-line scheduling via the UNMC Research Support System (RSS) is used to reserve working suites, facilitating the coordination of shared space and the monitoring of researcher usage and needs. 

The UNMC Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility is 1,392 square feet and located on the main UNMC campus. There are pass-through lockers and autoclaves, well-equipped corridors and working suites, a donning/dressing anteroom, a doffing/exit room, personal storage lockers, and an additional secure room to ensure that autoclaved items are sterile. Every room has a preprogrammed phone to automatically dial the UNMC Security Dispatch. The biosecure corridor has an emergency exit, eye wash station, and overhead shower, and the doffing/exit room has a hands-free sink and a shower. There is an air pressure monitor/alarm system, along with emergency backup lighting and electrical outlets. Many features contribute to the biosafety and biosecurity of this facility and the researchers needs. 

Working Suites

Each of the five working suites in the UNMC Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility are well-equipped with the instrumentation listed below for standard molecular microbiology and tissue culture procedures. In addition, each working suite has storage cabinets with benchtops, shelving, two carts, autoclavable tubs/containers, a clock, two or three non-cloth laboratory chairs, a stepping stool, and a spill kit with extra PPE. 

• Annually Certified Thermo Scientific Class A2 or Baker Class B2 Biological Safety Cabinet 
• Two Stacked Thermo Scientific Heracell VIOS 160i CO2 Incubator Chambers (165 L per electropolished stainless steel chamber) 

• Nor-Lake Manual Defrost Countertop/Stackable -20°C Freezer 
• Nor-Lake Undercounter Refrigerator 
• Thermo Scientific Sorvall Refrigerated Legend X1R Tabletop Centrifuge (maximum RCF: 25,000 to 25,999 x g) with 4 x 400 milliliter TX-400 Rotor, Microplate M-20 Rotor, and associated accessories (i.e., safety covers) 
• Thermo Scientific Sorvall Refrigerated Legend Micro 21 Microcentrifuge with several rotors and associated safety lids 
• Fisherbrand Analog Vortex Mixer 
• Corning Minicentrifuge 
• 5 Liter and 10 Liter Dual General Purpose Water Baths with 12 Liters of thermal beads 
• Fisherbrand Research Grade Inverted Microscope with C-mount Digital Camera and associated software 
• Dell Computer with Wi-Fi access 
• Canon DR-C230 Scanner 

Biosecure Corridor

The biosecure corridor that is adjacent to the working suites has shared equipment that includes the two-pass through autoclaves, storage cabinets for extra supplies, a large foot-operated/hands free sink, a fire extinguisher, a spill kit, and materials for sharp item cleanup, along with the following instrumentation. 

• Thermo Scientific -150°C Cryogenic Storage Freezer with racks and storage boxes 
• Two Thermo Scientific TSX Series Ultra-Low -80°C Freezers with racks and storage boxes 
• Justrite Flammable Storage Cabinet 
• Justrite Acid/Corrosive Storage Cabinet 
• RCA Microwave (1.1 cubic feet, 1,000-watt power output with 10 power levels) 

Services and Requirements

The UNMC BSL-3 Core Facility staff provides guidance and facility-specific training to principal investigators and their associated researchers that are interested in utilizing this facility. Annual testing is implemented to ensure competency in biosafety and biosecurity issues, as per institutional requirements. For additional details, please see the associated website for this facility. 

Acknowledgment 

For NIH guidance on acknowledgments, see information at the following website. 

If any manuscripts, presentations, and grants include data generated from the use of the Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility, please include the following sentence in the acknowledgement section, which is important for continuation of this resource. 

‘The University of Nebraska Medical Center BSL-3 Core Facility is administrated through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.’ 

Rigor & Reproducibility 

Guide to Rigorous and Reproducible Research Data: 

1. Consult with the BBiosafety Level 3 Core Facility staff members in the planning stage, in order to properly prepare for safe, reliable, and reproducible experiments.
2. Design all experiments with sufficient controls for rigor and accuracy, as well as have sufficient technical and biological replicates in independent experiments to verify reproducibility.
3. Consult with a statistician if help is needed to develop a Power Analysis, in order to ensure that the results will be adequately powered.
4. Ensure that all of your reagents (e.g., cell lines and antibodies) are fully validated. For antibody validation, always titrate and validate specificity.
5. Key biological and/or chemical resources (i.e., cell lines, antibodies, specialty chemicals, and other biologics) should be addressed in the application’s authentication plan.
6. Prepare a detailed protocol and document all steps, including reagents, equipment, and data analysis methods that were used in the experiment. Be sure to document any deviations.
7. Have a data analysis plan that can be easily followed.
8. Assure that the individuals performing the experiment are appropriately trained, as well as understand each step and the importance of performing them precisely, in order to ensure rigor.
9. Use only well-maintained instrumentation and make sure that it is used properly, to prevent breakage and to not compromise an experiment. If in doubt on how to properly operate and maintain an instrument in the UNMC Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility, seek advice and/or obtain training with a Biosafety Level 3 Core Facility staff member.
10. Store all documentation and data in a safe repository and be sure to backup this information. 

Consider Glenn Begley’s six rules for reproducibility shown below. 

1. Were the studies blinded?
2. Were all the results shown?
3. Were the experiments repeated?
4. Were the positive and negative controls shown?
5. Were the reagents validated?
6. Were the statistical tests appropriate? 

Additional recommendations to ensure rigor and reproducibility are available at the National Institutes of Health website. 

Data Management & Sharing 

Per the NIH, "Regardless of the mechanism used to share data, each dataset will require documentation. Documentation provides information about the methodology and procedures used to collect the data, details about codes, definitions of variables, variable field locations, frequencies, and the like. The precise content of documentation will vary by scientific area, study design, the type of data collected, and characteristics of the dataset." For an overview of the NIH scientific data sharing policies, see the following website. 

Researchers are responsible for the data they collect, which should be immediately and initially transferred to a reliable location such as an appropriate Box or SharePoint account with ideally a backup location. To upload the data to a repository for eventual sharing, the UNMC bioinformatics core may be able to assist. For repositories that are available for sharing scientific data, see the NIH website. Note that each repository has specific requirements with significant variability across data repositories. Also, the appropriate metadata needs to be populated by the principal investigator or associated researcher. 

The UNMC website includes information and resources for UNMC researchers to help prepare, create, and submit a data management and sharing plan with their NIH applications. Consultation with UNMC's Data Services Librarian is also available through the McGoogan Health Sciences Library. Since UNMC has an institutional registration for the DMPTool with UNMC specific templates, use UNMC single sign-on (SSO) to access this tool. 

For additional guidance on data management and sharing, see the NIH webinar Part 1 and Part 2, the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities presentation and recording, and the Harvard Biomedical Data Management website.