Quarter 4 Newsletter 2020
14 December 2020
Reflecting on 2020
Despite the many challenges 2020 has brought, we have been open throughout the year and are proud to have been involved in COVID-19 response activities. We are also very pleased this year to have continued to broaden the range of researchers we support, both within Cardiff University and from important healthcare sector companies.
Quality
Following our annual external ISO 9001:2015 audit of our facility earlier in the year, we are delighted to have been reaccredited. We remain the only UK Multi-Core Facility to have this accreditation. Our ISO 9001:2015 is complimented by our GCLP accreditation.
COVID-19 safe facility
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, we have been welcoming researchers back to our COVID-19 safe facility in line with Cardiff University's phased approach. Thank you to all for you cooperation with our new measures. We continue to encourage external businesses and Cardiff University researchers to contact us about our services and quality management advice.
Training
Thank you to the many of you from Cardiff University and way beyond who have attended our technical webinars and workshops in 2020. It has been great to see so much active participation in our wide range of virtual events including Flow Cytometry theory courses, our Gene Expression workshop and technical webinars (ImageStream®, Meso Scale Discovery®, PrimeFlow RNA, Bionano Genomics and more). Please contact us if you'd like to catch up on any webinars you have missed.
Collaboration
We have continued to promote our facility and Cardiff University and to learn and collaborate as much as we can throughout 2020. We have attended virtual conferences, collaboration events organised by Core Technologies for Life Sciences (CTLS), One Nucleus and the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) and local networking events organised by MediWales, Swansea University and the Life Sciences Hub Wales. We have enjoyed seeing how wholeheartedly and creatively new ways of working have been embraced, the recent MediWales Innovation Awards being a fine example.
And looking forward to 2021
We look forward to working with you in 2021 and continuing to welcome researchers to our COVID-19 safe facility. Remember to contact our team of scientific experts to get advice on topics including experimental design, maximising experimental reproducibility, sample preparation and data analysis. We are here to help you! Please continue to check our website and follow us on Twitter for details of upcoming events, many of these being open to both internal and external researchers.
Surface Plasmon Resonance using BiacoreTM technology
Look out for our upcoming symposium day in 2021 on this powerful technique we have for you in CBS. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) in BiacoreTM systems, such as our BiacoreTM T200, is most commonly used to monitor binding events between proteins. This leads to an in-depth understanding of interactions including how strong, how fast and how specific they are, There are an enormous range of other possible applications, including the study of organic compounds, nucleic acid interactions, viruses and even whole cells. More information about this technique.
