One of the critical missions of the Biotechnology Development Program is to keep the BRC up-to-date and equipped with the latest technological innovations to meet the scientific needs of the Cornell community.

We purchase new instruments

Part of our activities consist in writing shared instrument grant proposals. We have received funding for new instruments from federal and state sources, including the NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG), NIH High End Instrumentation (HEI), NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI), and New York State NYSTEM programs.

Most of the microscopes in the Imaging Facility have been acquired through shared instrument grants, for example. This is why it is crucial that you cite these grants in the acknowledgment section of your papers.

We host and maintain lab-owned instruments

Sometimes, individual faculty and groups of investigators purchase high-end instruments with their own funds, and place these instruments at the BRC. Our staff support and maintain these instruments, which can be used as shared core resources by the Cornell community.

We test emerging technologies

Motivated by a range of different reasons, vendors sometimes donate their latest instruments to the BRC core facilities. These instruments are either meant to support collaborative development of new applications, or to be tested by the Cornell community with the expectation of high-use and high-profile publications.