Sample Processing Facility

The Sample Processing Facility provides support to facilitate high throughput medical and epidemiological research. Specimens are efficiently processed to produce the highest-quality product possible for downstream experiments and/or analysis.

Contact

Sue List Armitage
Laboratory Manager
E Susan.List-Armitage@qimrberghofer.edu.au

Services Provided

Pre-collection advice and assistance, including phlebotomy and collection kit advice
Sample accession and data entry to LIMS (Laboratory Information System)
Auditable LIMS storage and retrieval
DNA extraction from whole blood, saliva and swabs
RNA extraction from whole blood and saliva
Plasma/serum isolation
Isolation and cryo-preservation of white blood cells (buffy coat isolation)
Sample normalisation and plating
Tissue extraction
FFPE nucleic extractions
Body fluid nucleic extractions (amniotic fluid, urine, faeces, serum, semen)
FTA card extractions
Biorepository services
Referral and transportation to external institutions
Nucleic Acid quantification (Fluorescence and UV reading)
LIMS reporting to investigators

Equipment

Quality assured nucleic extraction services using contemporary and reliable automation.

Magnetic bead separation using Perkin Elmer instrumentation – 360 MSM and Prepito instruments with a capacity to extract volume ranges from 200µL to 10mL of sample.
Column extraction – Qiagen QiaCube instrumentation
Manual processing/salting out method
Liquid Handling capacity – Eppendorf 5075, Beckman 4000
Biotek Synergy H4, Thermo Fluoroscan, Biotek Powewave

Storage and Tracking

Fully auditable sample storage and tracking using:

LIMS – QLIMS Laboratory Information Management System
Barcoded sample storage with indelible labels (human readable and 2D barcode) in SDS format with flat-bed reader and automated lid removal (FluidX system)
FreezerPro storage system

Service Integration

Our service can be fully integrated with other Scientific Services facilities, including DNA Sequencing, Genome Informatics, Proteomics and Histology. We take a collaborative, consultative approach with clients and will help with any aspect of your unique sample processing requirements. Our staff will work with you closely to design an implementation plan that will best fit your research needs.

Depending on project size, specific customer requirements and the biological background of the project, we can implement an extraction service solution using any one of our different extraction technologies or a combination of these technologies to an optimized fit-for-purpose solution.

The facility accepts work requests from all sources on a pay-for-service basis.

Requests are charged according to their type and origin. Charges differ between QIMR Berghofer staff and students, external academic clients and commercial clients.

Please contact Sue List-Armitage for further enquiries: Susan.List-Armitage@qimrberghofer.edu.au