Use Our Services
Training
Staff assistance is available for data acquisition as well as for consultation in experimental design, sample preparation, and data analysis. Researchers interested in using the facility instrumentation or needing staff assistance should contact Giselle Jacobson. Please indicate the instrument of interest and provide a short summary of the experiment to be performed.
All users must be trained by facility staff prior to unassisted use of the equipment.
Instrument Reservation
After completing training, users are able to reserve equipment (CD, SPR, ITC, AKTA, AUC, robots, ultracentrifuges) via a Google calendar. When scheduling time on equipment, it is important to estimate the correct amount of time needed for the reservation.
In addition to the online reservations, the facility maintains physical log books for each instrument. Users must sign in every time they use a piece of equipment. Failure to do so may result in loss of BIC Facility access. Instruments typically used for time periods shorter than 30 minutes (Azure, Avanti centrifuge, Typhoon phosphorimager) do not have online reservations and use of these instruments are billed from the sign-in sheets.
Access
The BIC Facility has 24 hour swipe card access. Researchers requesting access to the facility should complete the BIC access form and email it to Giselle. Swipe card access to the facility will be granted after completion of training.
External Use
The facility welcomes users from other academic institutions and industry. Please contact Giselle for more information.
Acknowledgments
All users should acknowledge the facility in publications that involve the use of BIC Facility instrumentation. Acknowledgments in publications are a key indicator to Notre Dame Research of facility usefulness and success. Please use the following statement to acknowledge the facility in your publications:
We thank the Biophysics Instrumentation Core Facility for use of the <<insert instrument(s)>>.
Additionally, publications resulting from use of the Biacore T200 SPR system should acknowledge NIH S10 shared instrumentation grant 1S10OD028553-01.
Authorship
If a facility staff member makes a significant intellectual contribution to a project, authorship is expected for any resulting manuscripts. Authorship should be discussed at the start of any collaborative projects with facility staff. Projects that users carry out unassisted with facility staff simply providing initial training do not warrant authorship.
Confidentiality
All data collected on a BIC Facility instrument is considered confidential and owned by the user who paid for the analysis. The BIC Facility will not divulge data to a third party unless prior written authority is given by the user. Storage of data generated in the facility is the responsibility of the user. The facility is not responsible for the loss of archived data.
Cost Recovery/Payment
Charges for services provided by the BIC Facility are billed at the end of the month through the iLab (Agilent) online system used by all Notre Dame core facilities. External payments may be made with either an established blanket PO # or individual PO #. Alternatively, external payments may be made by check upon completion of the work and receipt of the facility billing statement. Outstanding fees will be processed through accounting until they are paid in full. Investigators will be financially responsible for any equipment repair due to improper operation. However, investigators will not be billed for time lost due to equipment malfunction during normal operation.
Prioritization of Work
All of every instrument's time is available to investigators paying user fees, excepting any instrument downtime for necessary maintenance or repairs. Furthermore, all resources are available on a first come, first served basis with no user receiving priority regardless of group or institution. Google calendars are used to reserve instrument time and calendars are monitored to ensure one user does not monopolize any equipment. In the event of a reservation backlog of more than 2 weeks, priority will be given to users from the University of Notre Dame.
Conflict Resolution
Any conflicts arising between facility users and the facility or facility staff, such as questions or complaints related to scheduling, technical issues, authorship and data quality, should be directed to facility staff or the director. If a satisfactory resolution between the parties is not reached, the facility director will then direct conflicts to the core advisory committee.
Safety
All materials submitted to the BIC for analysis must have been obtained in compliance with current regulatory and legal requirements and investigators must fully disclose the potential hazards of the materials to BIC staff. Users in the BIC Facility are expected to comply with all current safety standards (e.g. IBC).