The Stark Neurosciences Research Institute Biomarker Core provides biomarker services (including fluid, tissue and transcriptomic) to investigators within Stark Neurosciences Research Institute, the Indiana University School of Medicine and external users. Available equipment that allows investigators to measure biomarkers in a variety of tissues from preclinical or human clinical sources includes an nCounter MAX system, GeoMx DSP system (Bruker), Meso QuickPlex SQ120 (Meso Scale Diagnostics), Ella (Proteinsimple) and the Merscope (Vizgen). Multiplexing of targets in tissues or on a slide, investigators can detect changes in their samples and target specific pathways of interest in disease. The Biomarker Core also offers services to design and validate custom kits for customers. Investigators will be charged for core employee time, as well as the cost of kits and materials. Services include data collection, data analysis and write-up of results if requested.
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In need of services at the Biomarker Core? Email the core by clicking below.
What can the core do for you?
- Determine the functional consequences of biochemical, genetic, pharmacological, or anatomical changes measured in tissue.
- Assess how a genetic mutation affects the proteomic and transcriptomic profile of tissue types in general or spatially.
- Develop and validate novel biomarkers.
- Assess cell type-specific mechanisms or consequences of treatment.
- Determine how manipulations of one cell type affect other nearby cell types.
- Monitor the response of biomarkers to drug treatments.
Core equipment
Access to high-performance electrochemiluminescence immunoassays (MESO QuickPlex SQ120) that can perform multiple, simultaneous tests on a single sample increasing productivity, saving samples, and delivering results quickly. The QuickPlex instrument has a wide menu of commercially available assay kits and the SNRI Biomarker core can assist in developing your own novel assays.
The Protein Simple Ella ELISA system provides robust and reliable data with sub-picogram level sensitivity, 4+ logs of dynamic range, and reproducibility that rivals the best laboratory automation. Protein simple offers a rapidly growing list of full-service kit assays and the SNRI Biomarker core offers custom assay development for the Ella platform.
The Bruker GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP) is a flexible spatial-omics platform enabling spatial transcriptomics and/or spatial proteomics in user-selected regions of interest. Combine the best of spatial and molecular profiling technologies by spatially profiling digital whole transcriptomes, cancer transcriptomes, and profiling data for 100s of validated protein analytes.
The Bruker nCounter is a multiplex nucleic acid hybridization technology that enables reliable and reproducible assessment of the expression of up to 800 genes in 12 samples in a single assay. The technology is based on digital detection and direct molecular barcoding of individual target molecules by using a unique probe pair for each target of interest.
The Vizgen Merscope is an end-to-end platform solution enabling massively multiplexed, error-robust, single-cell in situ transcriptomic imaging from whole tissue to subcellular resolution using MERFISH Chemistry. The Merscope can be used to analyze more than 1,000 genes and up to six proteins on the same sample with full customized gene panel on any species with an annotated genome. This will allow the researcher to look at the spatial context of RNA and protein expression on any tissues
core leadership
