核心設施-微陣列基因體醫學核心實驗室III

Microarray technology is the central platform for functional genomics and translational
research in the post-genomic era. Our main goal is to establish an up-to-date microarray core facility,
dedicated to provide high quality microarrays, technical supports and services to researchers in
genomic medicine nationwide. Access to this high quality microarray will allow our researchers to
be on the cutting edge of genetic research, focus on microarray-based gene expression profiling to
explore the pathogenic mechanism of human diseases. The microarray technology is particularly
important to clinical medicine in post-genomic era. It will provide high throughput and valuable
insights into differences in an individual’s disease as compared with constitutional mRNA
expression. The microarray information can provide tissue-specific disease signatures and
therefore, can improve disease diagnosis, disease classification, prognosis evaluation, identify
biomarkers, individualized patient treatment and improve treatment outcome. Although the cDNA
microarray is extremely powerful, the current application is still limited. The major obstacles are its
high cost and difficulty in maintaining good quality microarray and experiment. The purpose of this
project presented here is to establish the Core Lab and libraries for high quality service of microarray
under the reasonable price. The core facility will provide services including target labeling,
microarray hybridization, colorimetric and fluorescence detections, image digitization, and cluster
analysis. In addition, the services of custom-made chips including membrane- and glass-format
microarray are also provided. According to the work capacity, microarray core facility will open for
the investigators of academic and research institution participated in National Research Program of
Genomic Medicine to apply. The core facility has been established in National Taiwan University
College of Medicine for more than four years. Also, the Core Lab offered related research
consultation and education training to medical campus. National Science Council supports our core
facility from 2002 to set up the “Microarray Core Facility for Genomic Medicine”, which offers
nation-wide microarray services right away. The microarray core facility has provided complete
microarray services for dozens of institutions, including the researchers of Taiwan University,
Chung-Shan, Yang-Ming University, Chang-Geng University, Chung-Shan Medical University, and
so on, for 2,853 pieces of microarray membranes including human, mouse, and custom-made chips.
There are still hundreds of chips waiting for preparation. We had published 7 papers on SCI journals
and submitted 3 papers. The users of this core facility also had published 5 papers on SCI journals
and submitted 2 papers (see publication). We will provide services by the enrolled order and work
capacity. To provide a large number and swift microarray services and develop new microarray
format such as cell-based siRNA and promoter screening microarrays, the additional equipment and
personnel are essential. The Web address of Microarray Core Facility is
http://microarray.mc.ntu.edu.tw in which containing application procedure and working flow path,
applicants can apply for services on-line and download the application form.