2024 Research Resources Expo: Matching Researchers and Resources
Leaders from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Shared Resources group presented its research support services and technology at the University of Miami’s 2024 Research Resources Expo.
Nearly 260 investigators recently attended the University of Miami’s 2024 Research Resources Expo to learn about UM’s vast array of shared resources that support the university’s researchers.
Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Shared Resources joined core facilities across UM to educate faculty, trainees, students and staff about the shared resources, or core facilities, available to catalyze their work.
The two-day event at the Coral Gables and medical school campuses featured an internal networking session of core facility leaders, a public seminar, 58 poster sessions from 44 core facilities, breakout panel discussions and tours of core facilities, including some of the Sylvester Shared Resources.
“Core facilities play an increasingly important role in biomedical research by providing scientists access to sophisticated technology and expertise,” said Maria Alcaide, M.D., vice provost for research and scholarship at the University of Miami and director of the Infectious Diseases Research Unit at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
University Core Facilities
Core facilities are laboratories that have equipment or services that are far too expensive for any individual investigator to afford. Giving groups of investigators access to these resources can greatly enhance the scope, quality and impact of their research, according to George Grills, associate director for Shared Resources at Sylvester and chair of the UM Research Cores and Facilities Committee.
Sylvester Shared Resources offer expertise and services for onco-genomics, flow cytometry, cancer modeling, biostatistics and bioinformatics, biospecimen and behavioral and community-based research.
“Sylvester has outstanding shared resources,” Grills said.
The Sylvester Onco-Genomics Shared Resource was an early adopter of the Illumina NovaSeq X Plus gene sequencer. The platform has enabled Sylvester investigators to conduct large-scale, cancer-focused sequencing studies.
The International Society for the Advancement of Cytometry has designated the Sylvester Flow Cytometry Shared Resource as one of just five Centers of Excellence in the U.S. This shared resource has CyTOF mass cytometry and imaging mass cytometry platforms, the only instruments of their kind in Florida, to analyze gene and protein expression in cells in suspension and solid tissue sections on slides with single-cell resolution.
Helping Investigator Do Their Work
Shared resources contribute to the breadth and complexity of the university researchers’ work.
Yan Guo, Ph.D., director of Sylvester’s Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Shared Resource and professor of public health sciences at the Miller School, said his core offers project-specific, advanced data analysis.
“Sometimes we’re required to map the result generated from the investigator’s lab and match the results or integrate those results with public data to make a stronger conclusion,” Dr. Guo said.
The coordination of services creates new and exciting research approaches, such as multiomics analysis, possible. Multiomics integrates data from diverse platforms, including genomics, proteomics, epigenetics and metabolomics, to better understand the complexities of disease, said Antonio Iavarone, M.D., Sylvester deputy director and professor of neurological surgery and biochemistry and molecular biology at the Miller School.
For shared resource leaders, attending the in-person expo was an unprecedented chance to network with other shared resources leaders.
“If this meeting didn’t happen, I probably would not have met some of them,” Dr. Guo said.
The expo provided an opportunity for shared resources leaders to hear from investigators across the university about their research support needs.
“Much of our development is driven by the needs of our customers,” Dr. Guo said.
The previous shared resources expo was in 2016, but Grills said, “Going forward, the UM Research Resources Expo will be an annual event.”
The Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Scholarship, Office of Research Administration and Clinical and Translational Science Institute sponsored this year’s expo.