Bio-Analytical Support Lab

The BASL is comprised of two units that offer a range of services:

• Specialized Chemistry Unit: Provides tailored analytical services for measurement of water-soluble vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins, lipids, proteins, amino acids, carotenoids, antioxidants, hormones, enzymes, cytokines, hematological parameters, and macro and micro mineral from human body tissues, animal tissues and food.
• Specimen Processing Unit: Receives, processes, stores, and tracks biochemical specimens.

The BASL's Information Management System provides infinite storage and archiving of specimen identification numbers and includes online quality control checking and workload reporting. We also provide expert assistance with protocol and analytical development.

Summary of Services

Specimen Management

• Design and development of standard operating procedures (SOP) for sample collection
• Specimen processing, aliquoting, isolation of cells, treatment of samples
• Tracking, shipping and temporary storage

Biochemical Testing, Quantification and Qualitative analysis

• Quantification of biochemical markers for nutritional status in human and animal tissues
• Analytical expertise in UV/visible spectroscopy, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry, combustion procedures, enzymatic assays, electrochemical applications, fluorescence, immunoassays, ELISA procedures, chemiluminescence and radioimmunoassays

Research and Development

• Assay validation
• Development and implementation of analytical assays for measurement of clinical and biochemical markers in human tissues, animal tissues and food

Analytical development and design assistance

• Consulting and determining appropriate and best methods for testing
• Implementation of standard operating procedures

Quality Assurance

The BASL follows a rigorous Quality Assurance Program to ensure the reliability and consistency of our analytical service. Each analytical procedure has Standard Operating Procedures for certification, linearity determination, proficiency testing and calibration. When available, the laboratory uses the National Institute of Standard and Technology (NIST) reference and other commercial sources for verification.

Equipment

The BASL houses sophisticated equipment and a computer management system that allows efficient and effective support of the scientific and research requirements for our customer population. With a comprehensive analytical program, our goals are to provide a high level of analytical precision, quality, and accuracy, with timely results, to every client, for every sample tested.

Major Equipment

• Horiba / ABX Diagnostics Hematology Analyzer
• Beckman Coulter Clinical Chemistry Analyzer
• Thermo Electron Corporation ICP Spectrometer
• Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Immunoassay System
• Perkin Elmer Automatic Gamma Counter
• Perkin Elmer Tri-Carb Liquid Scintillation Counter
• BioTek Instruments, Inc., EPOCH Microplate Reader
• Becton, Dickinson and Company, BD Biosciences Accuri™ Flow Cytometer
• Meso Scale Discovery, Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC, Multiplex Immunoassay Analyzer
• Advanced Instruments Micro-Osmometer
• SCIEX 7500 QTRAP triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer
• Agilent high resolution quadrupole-time of flight tandem mass spectrometer (QTOF)

Staff

BASL staff provide the administrative and scientific leadership related to all operations of an analytical core research facility in which human, animal and food specimens are evaluated for biochemical markers. They direct the development, implementation and troubleshooting of laboratory tests using advanced and state-of-the-art instrumentation, establishing quality control procedures, and designing the analytical components of research protocols.

Xueyan Fu, PhD, Interim Director

Shahin Sarkarati Smith, BS, Senior Research Assistant
Jian Qin, BS, Research Assistant
Kiana Graham, AS, Specimen Processing Technician