Institutional core facilities: prerequisite for breakthroughs in the life sciences

Abstract

Core facilities have become an important resource in biomedical research, providing scientists with access to sophisticated instrumentation and expertise. To enable scientists to perform ever more complex and difficult experiments, core facilities not only need to constantly upgrade technology and expertise, but also cooperate and pool their assets.

Quality control in mass spectrometry‐based proteomics

“…Developments on both the experimental and computational front are needed to improve current QC methodologies, for which core facilities can act as an important driver . As proteomics technologies have matured, core facilities have concentrated the cutting edge technical expertise necessary to obtain high‐quality results, and they form an essential means of providing this in an affordable manner . Maybe even more than research laboratories, core facilities have an incentive to support and develop robust quality assurance practices to demonstrate the quality of the generated data to their clients and stakeholders, and through their expert knowledge on a broad aspect of MS‐based applications they are at the forefront of developing standardized QC workflows.…”

“…[31][32][33] Also, the increased clustering of high-end research infrastructures such as mass spectrometers into institutional core facilities is pushing the need for systematic quality control. 34 Since core facilities are often accessible on a fee-for-service basis, users want their samples to be analyzed according the highest quality standards. In case results are negative or below expectations, QC data can be shared with the user to for instance exclude low instrument performance.…”

A tale of two cores: a quantitative comparative analysis of the institutional and the open access models for flow research technology platforms

“…Core facilities are key support infrastructures that provide specific technologies and expertise in cutting-edge technologies in an affordable manner. It has been suggested that the core facility concept ideally should be taken beyond single institutions towards institutional alliances (Meder et al, 2016). Such an approach would equip scientists with the major sophisticated and agile toolkit for the interdisciplinary approaches.…”

Survey of Core Facilities shows the importance of communication and management for optimal research quality

“…We call fullservice facilities the CFs offering an "all-inclusive service", where the CF staff executes the experiment with or without data analysis. Other CFs, called "user laboratories" in (Meder et al 2016), provide and maintain an infrastructure where users have access to equipment, training and expert advice. Here we refer to these as self-service facilities.…”

“…They develop new technologies and spread their technical and research expertise to the numerous scientists they teach. They connect institutions, foster exchange, collaborations and interdisciplinary research (Meder et al 2016).…”