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College of Medicine launches incentive program to increase core lab use |
| By
Jim Winkler |
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Mar 26, 2008 |
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There aren’t any green bills featuring oversized, off-center portraits of George Washington or Andrew Jackson along with features designed to foil the printers of funny money.
No shiny state quarters or historic buffalo nickels.
But don’t let the idea of “core cash,” part of a new College of Medicine research incentive program on the Health Science Campus, fool you.
The money spends just as well as the version with pictures of the two famous American presidents.
The program is aimed at providing incentives to faculty members to use more extensively three specialized, cutting-edge core labs that provide services such as DNA extraction and real-time images of compounds moving in and out of cells and that support some of the University’s most high-tech research, according to Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold, provost, executive vice president for health affairs and College of Medicine dean.
The imaging, genomics and proteomics, and flow cytometry core laboratories house expensive, sophisticated research tools to which UT scientists might not otherwise have access, helping them be more competitive for federal and private grants. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows also train in the labs, increasing the ready-made work force for the biotechnology companies Ohio is trying to attract, and UT scientists often consult with core lab directors and staff members about research questions.
The labs operate on a fee-for-service basis.
For scientists awarded “core cash,” it’s like having a pre-paid American Express card. They can charge core-lab service fees to a fund administered by the college instead of using grant or department funds.
Gold sat down last year with core laboratory directors Drs. Robert Blumenthal, Akira Takashima, David Allison and David Giovannucci to develop the idea.
“Core cash may be used to cover hourly fees for routine core services such as multicolor flow cytometric analysis, high-speed cell sorting and real-time confocal imaging,” Takashima said. “On the other hand, it cannot be used to cover the cost for expensive materials such as gene and protein chips.”
“This program is aimed at optimizing use of labs, at facilitating faculty recruitment and retention, and at fostering campus-wide interdisciplinary research,” Gold said. “Our core labs are critical to the expanding research initiatives of the University and will be even more important in our anticipated future growth.”
College of Medicine department chairs can request up to $50,000 as part of a startup package for new faculty recruitment and up to $25,000 for bridge funding to tide over scientists whose support from other sources has been interrupted. “Core cash” awards of up to $50,000 also can be requested to launch high-risk/high-return pilot research projects that are not yet funded with extramural grants to stimulate interdisciplinary research efforts or to support research projects conducted by residents and students. “Core cash” can’t be used to cover service fees of extramurally funded projects.
The core labs will track the “core cash” research productivity and expenditures of faculty members and provide reports to Gold and financial officials.
State-of-the-art instruments and services available in the core facilities can be found at http://www.utoledo.edu/corelabs/.
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