Laboratory Research Spaces:
All of the labs have ready access to world-class core facilities, including the McDonnell Genome Institute (MGI), the Genome Technology Access Center (GTAC), the Institute for Informatics (I2), the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC), the Siteman Flow Cytometry Core (SFC), and the Tissue Procurement Core (TPC). Additionally, each lab utilizes embedded resources available through their respective departments including clinical research coordinators, protocol writers, and statistics and bioinformatics support staff.
Dr. Mahajan’s lab
(Department of Urology) is ~3000 sq ft of laboratory space located on 6th floor of the Cancer
Research Building. It is comprised of 10 rooms, which includes 2 lab spaces sufficient for 15
postdocs/research associates, 4 tissue culture rooms, 2 offices, a sonicator room, equipment room, and a cold room. The lab is well equipped with various instruments such as PCR machines, centrifuges, incubators, fine balance, and microscopes.
Dr. Chaudhuri’s lab
(Department of Radiation Oncology) is in the Radiation Oncology Research Building at the Washington University School of Medicine. It is well-equipped for the proposed experiments including urine DNA extraction, DNA library preparation and hybrid capture, and has ready access to genomics, informatics, tissue procurement, and FACS core facilities. The “wet” lab aspects of the proposed research will occur in Dr. Chaudhuri’s lab, which is located on the 3rd floor of the Radiation Oncology Research Building and is part of 9,877 sq. ft. of shared laboratory space. Dr. Chaudhuri has 2.5 dedicated bays (5 benches) with space for 8 people to conduct experimental work. His lab includes an ABI 7900HT 384-well real-time PCR instrument, MACSQuant flow cytometer, Qubit fluorometer, Eppendorf MasterCycler, Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer, BD Medimachine, speed vacuum concentrator, centrifuges, heat blocks, fridge/freezers (4, -20, -80, LN2), tissue culture hood and incubator. Dr. Chaudhuri also has an informatics suite adjacent to his office with cubicle space for three lab members to conduct computational work. The lab has institutional licenses for analytical software including FloJo for flow cytometry analysis, Graphpad Prism for statistics and graphing, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Illustrator. Dr. Chaudhuri’s lab also owns and operates two computational servers including.
Dr. Arora’s laboratory
(Department of Medical Oncology) at Washington University School of Medicine includes ~1200 sq ft of fully equipped laboratory space with work-bays that can accommodate 7 investigators. Adjacent to the laboratory is a 500 sq ft BSL2 laboratory with biosafety cabinets, incubators, microscopes, centrifuges, scintillation counter, and more. The lab carries out all organoid model, patient derived xenograft models, and other bladder cancer and prostate cancer mouse studies.
Animal research space:
Washington University School of Medicine has approximately nine facilities available for housing and care of laboratory animals. This space includes large and small animal holding areas. Five veterinarians provide animal health and the facilities are accredited by the American Association for the Accreditation of Laboratory and Animal Care. The division of urology employs a full-time technician proficient in large animal care to assist with studies that involve minimally invasive procedures on these animals. The facility has state-of-the-art operating rooms and equipment for performing minimally invasive surgical procedures.
Clinical research space:
The clinical research resources of the division of urology and the Siteman Cancer Center will be available. The division of urology has an active clinical research program with clinical nurse
coordinators which will be at the fellows’ disposal. The Siteman Cancer Center is an NIH sponsored cancer center that also has clinical research coordinators that can be used if needed.