Advanced Technologies Core (Core D)

Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville TN

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Advanced Technologies Core ABSTRACT The Tennessee Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) is a four-way partnership between Vanderbilt University Medical Center (a research-intensive institution), Meharry Medical College (a burgeoning academic health sciences center), the Tennessee Department of Health (an academically engaged state health department), and Nashville CARES (a sophisticated HIV community-based organization). The CFAR's Advanced Technologies Core (ATC) develops new assays and provides services specifically designed to meet the needs of HIV clinical, translational, and basic scientists. The ATC has developed enhanced single-cell analytic capabilities, including B- and T-cell receptor sequencing, RNA transcriptional profiling, and cellular indexing of transcriptomes and epitopes, as well as HIV plasma RNA and proviral DNA sequencing and HIV integration site assays. The ATC works closely with other Vanderbilt core facilities to provide a concierge service and a “continuum of support” for investigators from study design through to analysis. Several services are provided for CFAR investigators without direct laboratory experience or training, including cell isolation and cryopreservation protocols for PBMCs, adipose tissue, and skin. The ATC has developed cell staining protocols for analytical flow cytometry to evaluate the phenotype and function of B and T lymphocytes, as well as flow sorting assays to bulk sort populations of lymphocytes and to perform single-cell sorting for detailed transcriptomic analyses. The ATC services provide for investigator needs unmet elsewhere in the partner institutions, often by leveraging the impressive range of ‘generic’ (i.e., non-HIV-specific) institutional cores that are equally available to Vanderbilt and Meharry investigators. The ATC will continue to work hand-in-hand with CFAR investigators to design assays, facilitate assay performance, and help interpret results. The ATC will promote basic, clinical, and translational HIV research through three specific aims: 1) To provide expertise, consultation, and assay performance in wet laboratory techniques and imaging, as well as services that require BSL3 procedures. Established services include PBMC isolation, advanced multiparametric flow cytometry and sorting of cell populations of primary interest to HIV science, CRISPR gene editing, droplet digital PCR, and data interpretation. 2) To innovate integrative methods to provide visualization and interpretation of data generated from wet laboratory assays and imaging to CFAR members. This aim will leverage pipelines designed by the ATC team, which include data visualization for flow cytometry and single-cell sequencing data. 3) To develop new technologies based on the needs of CFAR investigators and then integrate state-of-the-art assays into our “continuum of support” model. For this aim, the ATC will offer a platform to develop ex vivo assays and models to study mechanisms as needed for individual projects.