Facilities

Our Centre was established from funding by the Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, and the Queensland Government through its Smart State initiative. We are located in a new $30 million facility for the Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies. The Institute is unique in Australia with facilities and expertise specializing in high throughput biology and chemistry for drug discovery and systems biology. Institute facilities include a confocal plate reader for high-throughput cell assays, a high-throughput calcium imaging system, and several robotic cell-free assay systems. The Institute is home to the Queensland Compound Library, Australia's largest collection of bioactive compounds, and the Queensland node of the Cooperative Research Centre for Cancer Therapeutics.

Cell culture

We have separate facilities for culture of animal and human cells. In addition to standard biohazard hoods and incubators we have installed Australia's only robotic system for high throughput cell culture - the CompacT SelecT (The Automation Partnership) which can grow independently up to 90 cell lines in T175 flasks and deliver them into microwell plates for analysis. We can provide a service for growing cells in large quantities for assays.

Our human cell culture facility features a closed cell culture system (Biospherix) that maintains cells at defined temperature and gas tensions at all times during the cell culture process. This system controls all aspect of handling for high quality stem cell culture.

Cell analysis

We are equipped for high throughput cell analysis systems including fluorescence-activated cell sorting (BD FACSAria) and a confocal plate reader (Evotec Opera).

Microscopy and imaging

Our microscopy facility includes upright and inverted microscopes (Olympus, Zeiss) for cell and tissue analyses. We have capabilities in semi-automated wide-field optical imaging, confocal microscopy and live-cell imaging, allowing time-lapse imaging of cell cultures over minutes, hours and days. We are developing algorithms for automated analysis of 2D and 3D images. We have developed new techniques in stereology that give the capability to count cells in brain sections using 3D imaging and four colour fluorescence.

Cell physiology

We have facilities for patch clamp electrophysiology and calcium imaging of cultured cells.

Gene expression

The Illumina Beadstation provides a platform for gene expression, genotype, CGH and ChiP on Chip analyses. We provide a service for microarray analyses through Griffith’s DNA Sequencing Facility.

Stem Cell Banking

We provide a secure facility to store our adult stem cell lines. These cell lines are available through collaboration.

Sydney Node

We have a Node of the Centre in Sydney, based at the Kolling Institute, Royal North Shore Hospital. This facility is run by Associate Professor Carolyn Sue, Department of Medicine, University of Sydney (csue@med.syd.edu.au). This allows us to collaborate more widely giving us access to patients and participants from the largest city in Australia.

Information systems

Workflow, patient information and experimental data are strictly managed with a laboratory information management system that feeds into databases linking cell-based and gene-based analyses with patient-derived and quality-control information.

Animal models

We have facilities for sterotaxic surgery and cell transplantation into the brain and spinal cord. Our comprehensive behavioural analysis facilities include automated systems for analysis of locomotor behaviour and a variety of learning paradigms in rat and mouse.