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Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

  • 1.  Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-09-2023 12:29

    January 9, 2023

    Hello Everyone,

    Happy to New Year.   Welcome to 2023.

    Let's start off the year with a round of introductions.....share where you are and what you do in your Core, as well as one question you'd like to ask your fellow ABRF members....(perhaps it's a technical issue, a performance metric, or looking for a template or other resources)....

    Chances are other ABRF members have similar interests and questions, so you'll be able to help one another by connecting here to the 2300+ ABRF members...

    Look forward to seeing your questions...


    Thank you for being a part of the ABRF Community.




    ------------------------------
    Ken Schoppmann
    ABRF
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-10-2023 08:57
    I'm at Johns Hopkins University.  I run a Sanger Sequencing, dPCR, qPCR, pyrosequencing Core, and I'm part of a much larger group of Cores that covers many things DNA related. I am a member of the ABRF Executive Board and the MAD SSCi organizing committee.

    My question: What was the most useful educational experience you had last year?  (ABRF or non-ABRF related)

    ------------------------------
    Roxann Ashworth
    Laboratory Director
    Johns Hopkins University
    Baltimore MD
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-10-2023 09:25
    Happy New Year to everyone!

    I am at Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. I manage a single crystal X-ray (macromolecular) Crystallography Facility at the Institute of Molecular Biophysics. I have been running this single-person shared facility for thirty years. I was a member of organizing committee of SEASR from 2016 through 2022. I am member of ABRF Membership and Meetings Committees. Due to your support, I have been elected to the ABRF Executive Board (2023-).

    My question: How do you successfully communicate the services your provide to the larger base of users (internal and external) ?

    Hope to see you at the annual meeting in-person or virtually!


    ------------------------------
    Thayumanasamy Somasundaram
    Senior Research Associate
    Florida State University
    Tallahassee FL
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-10-2023 12:25
    I am an associate director for the Cornell Institute of Biotechnology in Ithaca, New York.  We house a number of life science core facilities open to Cornell researchers and external users.  I have a variety of duties, generally assisting core directors with reporting, communications, pricing, and trying to address problems or concerns as they come up. As a former core director with a lot of experience in the university I try to leverage my institutional knowledge and memory to make good things happen.

    Question: How do you overcome silos between cores and coordinate cooperative efforts as there are more and more technologies and research approaches that don't fit cleanly into a single core (e.g. spatial transcriptomics, single cell work, studies involving data from genomics and proteomics/metabolomics approaches)?

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    James Van Ee
    Associate Director
    Cornell University, Institute of Biotechnology
    Ithaca NY
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-10-2023 14:48
    Hello ABRF friends and colleagues! My name is Jenny Schafer, and I am Managing Director of the Cell Imaging Shared Resource (CISR) at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. We offer light and electron microscopy services to the entire Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

    My eternal question: How do you (successfully) encourage users to acknowledge your core in publications?

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    Jenny Schafer
    Managing Director, Research Associate Professor
    Vanderbilt University
    Nashville TN
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-11-2023 08:02
    Hello Ken and Everyone:

    I am Natalie Serkova, I am a Funding Director of Colorado Animal Imaging Shared Resource. I also oversee all our P30 CCSG-supported Cancer Center Shared Resources. My background is MR Physics/ Neuroimaging. My own research is in the area of imaging in neurooncology and metabolic aberrations in cancer. I have  wonderful Core team who provides animal imaging services to over 120 investigators in the state of Colorado and nation-wide - and we also have expertise in NMR-based metabolomics.

    Happy to be a new member of the ABRF - and share our experience and (some) problems :). We are working right now on creating the SOPs for new NIH DMSP requirements - and trying to find a better way to manage our Colorado Cores service contracts (which are enormous).

    Natalie

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    Natalie Serkova
    University of Colorado Cancer Center, Anschutz Medical Campus
    Denver CO
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-11-2023 10:03
    Hello All!

    I'm Steve Polter and I'm an Instrumentation Specialist with the Flow Cytometry Resource at the University of Rochester. I handle a lot of our day-to-day core activities from training and assisting users to troubleshooting and interfacing with service technicians. I also conduct sorts and manage/support our sort operators. 

    A question I ask is: How can I improve the mindfulness of my user base?

    ------------------------------
    Steve Polter
    Research Specialist
    Flow Cytometry Resource
    CART / Center for Advanced Research Technologies
    Office: 585-274-0213
    Location: Med Cntr 3-4106
    Web: CART.urmc.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-12-2023 08:03
    Welcome to the ABRF Family Natalie
    We have quite a few members in the imaging field and I am sure they can help you

    Sridar

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    Sridar Chittur
    ABRF EB Member
    Director, Center for Functional Genomics
    Center for Functional Genomics, SUNY Albany
    Rensselaer NY
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 02-14-2023 09:01

    Its great to see another preclinical imaging member on here! I manage the Preclinical Imaging Core at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Welcome to the ABRF! 

    Sharon



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    Sharon Samuel
    University of Alabama at Birmingham
    Birmingham AL
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-11-2023 14:44
    Hi ABRFers,
       I'm the Associate Director of Operations at Purdue's Bindley Bioscience Center. I'm primarily a core administrator, and also involved in our statewide CTSA. I am a member of the ABRF Core Administrator's Network Coordinating Committee (CAN-CC).

    Question: what is the most successful program or policy your institution has to promote staff retention, and what do you wish your institution would do that it is not currently doing to help retain skilled staff?

    ------------------------------
    Natasha Nikolaidis
    Associate Director of Operations
    Purdue University
    West Lafayette IN
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-12-2023 13:57

    Hi Fellow ABRF members,

    I'm the director of the CHTN (Eastern Division). This is a research resource that collects and prepares human tissue samples to investigators. It is an NCI supported resource and available to researchers nationally. 

    I was intrigued by Natasha's question about staff retention, as my response would have been very different 3 years ago. But since the pandemic, the best thing that has been instituted for staff retention is the ability to allow staff some time to work remotely. Certainly this depends on the job responsibilities, but even working from home one day a week has made a significant difference for some of my staff.

    Yes, this is a bit more work for me to juggle the schedules, but much easier than training new staff.

     

    I'm interested in hearing from others regarding what has worked for them in retaining staff.

     

     

    Diane (Dee) McGarvey, QBRScm

    Director, CHTN Eastern Division

    ISBER Director-at Large, Americans Region

    Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

    University of Pennsylvania

    568 Dulles, 3400 Spruce Street

    Philadelphia, PA 19104

    Phone: 215-662-4571

    dfitzsim@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

    *******************************

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  • 12.  RE: Welcome to the ABRF All Member Community - introduce yourself and ask a question here

    Posted 01-12-2023 10:30
    I'm Director of Research Operations at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), a relatively small (~55 labs) independent biomedical research institute on Long Island, about 30 miles from New York City. Part of my responsibilities include core facility management and administration, including the animal facility and our cancer center shared resources. We currently have 17 cores supporting research in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and genomics.

    My question is budget related: Does your institution provide any "standard" support for core operating expenses (i.e., salaries of core directors, service contracts), or are all core operating expenses expected to be covered by external grants/funds supporting individual cores plus income from user fees?

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    Sydney Gary
    Director Research Operations
    Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
    Cold Spring Harbor NY
    ------------------------------