Genomics Training and Education Center

The Genomics Training and Education Center (GTEC) is a joint initiative supported by the Brown Cancer Center and the KY-INBRE program to offer researchers, staff and students at the University of Louisville and across the Commonwealth of Kentucky support with Genomics analyses and wet-lab training.

GTEC offers workshops in lab techniques and data analysis tools, access to instrumentation and assistance with data interpretation.

Data Interpretation Services

Access and Training to use MetaCore (Clarivate, London, UK)  for biological data interpretation: 

• Pathway enrichment
• GO Ontology Enrichment
• Network Analysis

If you have a list of genes which have changed in your experiment and are wondering which pathways and functions those genes are involved in, MetaCore can help you find an answer. MetaCore’s manually curated database is based on publications and kept up to date by the provider. It can even be searched for keywords without data of your own and provide you with a list of molecules and publications that are relevant to your research. 

Single‐Cell Cluster Analysis and Annotation Assistance

With access to Partek Flow’s single-cell browser, we can assist you in visualizing expressed cell type markers in your single cell data to help you browse through your data and identify the cell type of your clusters. 

Data Presentation, e.g.

• PCA plots depict your samples in a 3-dimensional space where similar samples cluster are located close to each other
• Heatmaps show the expression levels of a list of genes across your samples
• Volcano plots combine p-Value and fold-change information for gene expression changes in your experiment in one plot
• Dot plots show the expression level of one gene across your samples and experimental groups

Instrument Access

(Equipment can be reserved using our online scheduling system. Simply contact us for access.)

• Real‐Time PCR (QuantStudio 7): Our instrument is commonly used for gene expression or SNP assays. It is calibrated for Taqman as well as SYBR green dyes and custom dyes can be added. It is equipped with a 96-well FAST, 384-well and a TLDA array card block
• Covaris Sonicator S220: This high-end sonicator enables accurate and fine-tuned shearing of DNA and Chromatin
• Miltenyi GentleMacs Octo Tissue Dissociator: The GentleMacs platform offers kits for customized gentle dissociation of different tissues
• Agilent Bioanalyzer: The Bioanalyzer provides you with information regarding the integrity and size distribution of your RNA or DNA samples. Due to the finicky nature of this instrument, we offer the instrument operation as full service. Just drop off your samples and we will email you the results
• Nanodrop: Spectrophotometry using just 1-2 ul of your sample. The full spectrum provides insight on certain common RNA/DNA contaminants
• Qubit: Fluorometer which offers dyes for dsDNA, ssDNA and RNA for accurate and specific nucleic acid quantification

Workshops

• RNA/DNA QC
• Wet-lab NGS Library Preparation
• Sequencing Run Set‐Up
• Student Summer Workshops
• Genomics data analysis tools workshops – Genome Browser, MetaCore, etc

Mining of Publicly available data sets

Reach out to us for more information if you would like to mine publicly available datasets while we are incorporating these services.