New Service Policy Effective 4/2/07
We are changing the way the Biological Analysis Core provides services to NIEHS Investigators. This action is based on a review of the past Core structure and its usage rates, which showed a troubling under-utilization and less innovation and variety that is advocated by NIEHS. We took this to indicate a need for change, to both better serve NIEHS Center Investigators and to address a potential weakness in the coming competitive renewal of this grant.
New Funding Mechanism
Instead of directly supporting the current facilities for about a day a week (or less), the Core will use its funds to pay for facility charges, after rapid review and approval of requests made by NIEHS Investigators. You can ask for funds to pay for facility services, provided either by those presently in the Core or by any other facility that does work relevant to your environnmental research. We expect that this will allow users to benefit from the many well-equipped facilities and services available in the medical area, thereby expanding the palette of technologies available for NIEHS Center research. For example, this mechanism could pay for costs of imaging mice in the new small animal imaging center at the BIDMC or for costs of 'omics experiments whether analyzed here (the HSPH Proteomics Facility) or elsewhere (e.g., the Partners Microarray Facility). Services traditionally provided will continue, such as flow cytometry, imaging, electron microscopy, etc., but users will request funds to pay for the services. All of the existing facilities (flow cytometry, imaging, proteomics, electron microscopy) have fee schedules on a per hour or per project basis.
How?
- Details are in the single-page documents called "Administrative Process".
- Complete the application: "NIEHS Bioanalysis Core Funding Application".
- Key points:
- Requests of up to $5000 will be considered, although most will likely be lower (e.g. 5 hours confocal time $250, etc.)
- Requests will be processed with a goal of 72 hour turnaround.
- To assure transparency, all approved requests will be public information for NIEHS investigators. Check List of Funding Requests Approved since 4/1/07.
- We will try to spend about 1/12 of the annual budget every month.
- Any unused funds (every 6 months?) will be turned over to the larger pilot project pool.
- These funds are meant to provide services not already covered by extant grants.
Contact
Director: Lester Kobzik, Professor in the Department of Environmental Health
Coordinator: Jean Lai (jeanlai@bioimage.harvard.edu), 617-432-2243, contact person to request funds. She will arrange billing and keep centralized records to track usage. She will also help with details of using extramural facilities, (e.g. interface with microarray facilities).