The mission of the Microarrays Core Facility is to advance an intramural research program that utilizes the developments in genomics and bioinformatics to address critical threats to human health as a consequence of environmental exposures.
Specifically, the facility incorporates genome-wide gene expression analysis using microarray technology as well as emerging gene expression analysis technologies and developing bioinformatics approaches to address the NIEHS mission of reducing or eliminating these threats to human health.
Recent developments in genome sciences have led to the development of DNA microarray technology, a tool of unprecedented power for the study of gene sequence, structure, and expression. Using microarrays, the expression of thousands of genes can be monitored simultaneously in two biological samples of interest, and the expression patterns compared.
Thus, the goals of the Microarrays Core include:
The pursuit of mechanistic investigations of the impact of exposures on gene expression and alterations in critical cellular regulatory pathways
The utilization of global gene expression changes following environmental stresses and bioinformatics tools to identify specific changes that are tightly linked with a deleterious human health outcome as patterns or biomarkers of a particular disease or toxic outcome
The continual development and implementation of new and better analytical and computational approaches to investigate genome-wide changes in gene expression.