Previous Core Instrumentation Recipients
2020 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardees
Type-A
Awardee: Andrea Hodge
Equipment: Xeuss 3.0
Facility: Core Center of Excellence in Nano Imaging
Awardee: Andrea Armani
Equipment: Electron Beam Evaporator
Facility: Center of Excellence in Nanofabrication
Awardee: Sue Martin
Equipment: Open Specimen
Facility: Biorepository
Core Instrumentation-Dean’s
Dean’s Name: Yannis Yortsos & Amber Miller
Equipment: EELS Spectrometer and Camera Upgrades
Facility: Core Center of Excellence in Nano Imaging
Cores-Lite
Awardee: David Hutchins
Equipment: BD Accuri C6 Plus Flow Cytometer
Facility: Professor Hutchins’ Laboratory
Awardee: Richard Brutchey
Equipment: PELCO BioWave Pro+ Laboratory Microwave and Electron Microscopy Tissue Processing Application Kit
Facility: Core Center of Excellence in Nano Imagining (CNI)
Awardee: Richard Roberts
Equipment: Expi Expression System and a Biotek Plate Reader HTX (S1LFTA)
Facility: Center for Peptide and Protein Engineering
Awardee: Stephen Burke Cronin
Equipment: Broadband Imaging Spectrometer
Facility: SSC 317
2019 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardees
Type A
Awardee: Andrea Armani
Equipment: Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) Dicing Saw
Facility: Keck Foundation Photonics Center
Awardee: Steven Nutt
Equipment: Ultimax Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Symmetry Electron backscatter Detector (EBSD)
Facility: Center of Excellence in Nano Imaging (CNI)
Awardee: Xiaojiang Chen
Equipment: Atomic Force Microscope
Facility: NanoBiophysics
Type B
Awardee: Travis Williams
Equipment: High Temperature GPC
Facility: USC Center of Excellence for Molecular Characterization
Core Instrumentation-Dean’s
Dean’s Name: Amber Miller & Yannis Yortsos
Equipment: A1R HD Multiphoton and Visible Confocal Imaging System
Facility: Translational Imaging Center
Dean’s Name: Yannis Yortsos
Equipment: Focused Ion Beam (FIB)/Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) – FEI Helios G4 PFIB Uxe
Facility: Center of Excellence in Nano Imaging (CNI)
Dean’s Name: Vassilios Papadopoulos
Equipment: RapifleX MALDI Tissuetyper. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS)
Facility: School of Pharmacy Translational Research Laboratory
2018 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardees
Type A
Awardee: Richard Roberts
Equipment: Biotage Peptide Synthesis Lab Package
Facility: Peptide Production Core (new core facility)
Awardee: Scott Fraser
Equipment: FEI Talos F200C G2, w/High Pressure Freezer and Automatic Freeze Substitution
Facility: Center for Nanoscale Imaging (formerly CEMMA)
Awardee: Rong Lu
Equipment: S3e Cell Sorter
Facility: Flow Cytometry Core Facility
Awardee: Andrea Armani
Equipment: Ellipsometer/Microscope
Facility: Keck Foundation Photonics Center
Awardee: Annie Wong-Beringer
Equipment: Seahorse XFe96 and XFp
Facility: School of Pharmacy Translational Research Laboratory
Awardee: Wendy Cozen
Equipment: TMA Grand Master and accompanying required LED monitor, barcoder
Facility: Translational Pathology Core Facility (Population-Based Arm)
Awardee: Daniel Campo
Equipment: NextSeq 550: a versatile and powerful DNA sequencer
Facility: UPC Genome Core
Core Instrumentation-Dean’s
Awardee: Laura Mosqueda
Equipment: Flow Cytometry Core Facility Equipment Funding Request
Facility: BD FACSSymphony
Awardee: Yannis Yortsos
Equipment: Acquisition of an electron beam writer for nanolithography
Facility: Keck Photonics Center
CHLA
Awardee: Shahab Asgharzadeh
Equipment: Automated Imaging Mass Cytometry Instrumentation
Facility: Hyperion Module and Leica Bond Rx
2017 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardees
Type A
Awardee: Amir Goldkorn
Equipment: RareCyte CyteFinder/CytePicker and Leica BOND RXm
Facility: the Circulating Tumor Cell Research Core
Awardee: Andrea Armani
Equipment: PlasmaPro ICP
Facility: Photonics Center
Awardee: Steven Nutt
Equipment: FEI NovaNano SEM 450 with Thermo Scientific 100 mm 2 UltraDry Premium EDS
Facility: CEMMA
Awardee: Xiaojiang Chen
Equipment: Zetasizer Nano Z system (ZEN5600)
Facility: Center of Excellence in Nanobiophysics Core
Awardee: Peter Conti
Equipment: Automated Radiosynthesizer (GE)
Facility: USC Molecular Imagining Center – Small Animal Imaging Core
Type B
Awardee: Janos Peti-Peterdi
Equipment: Nikon A1R-MP+ multiphoton microscope
Facility: Cell & Tissue Imaging
2016 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardees
Awardee: Andrew McMahon
Equipment: Lecia Sp8 Upright Confocal Microscope
Facility: Broad CIRM Center for Microscopy
Awardee: John O’Brien
Equipment: SUSS MicroTec Double-sided Mask Aligner
Facility: Center of Excellence in Nanofabrication
This is a key pattern definition tool for the nanofabrication core facility. The proposed mask aligner will be installed when it arrives in the current nanofabrication facility, and then it will be moved into the new cleanroom when it opens. The nanofabrication core facility supports the research efforts of between 25 and about 33 research groups at any one time. This proposal represents a continuing effort to upgrade the fabrication tools in the lab.
Awardee: Steve Nutt
Equipment: Wavelength Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer
Facility: Center of Excellence for Microscopy and Analysis
This spectrometer will enable USC researchers to quickly identify trace elements in their materials, measure the thickness of thin film heterostructures, and resolve spectroscopic peak overlaps. The instrument will provide a tool for accurate, quick, nondestructive, and quantitative bulk material analysis.
Awardee: Travis Williams
Equipment: PPMS Expansion Tools
Facility: Center of Excellence for Molecular Characterization
The acquisition of several pieces of equipment that will expand and empower the capabilities of an existing Physical Property Measurement System (PPMS) system at USC. The PPMS is an open
architecture, variable temperature and magnetic field cryostat for characterizing the magnetic and electrical transport properties of materials. Intended to enhance our ability to characterize electrical transport in highly resistive materials as encountered in semiconducting oxides, highk dielectrics, nanoparticle thin films, and organic/hybrid photovoltaic devices.
Awardee: John O’Brien
Equipment: Oxford Instruments PlasmaPro System 100/1 Seco
Facility: Vivian Hall of Engineering
The reactive ion etching (RIE) tool would compliment the PECVD facility. The PECVD facility allows cleanroom users to deposit thin films of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride. The RIE tool is used to pattern these thin films. This tool will be used by all of the research groups in the facility and the films that are patterned are part of a set of fundamental processes involved in lithographically patterning semiconductors.
Awardee: Xiaojiang Chen
Equipment: MicroCal Isothermal Titration Calorimeters (MicroCal PEAQ-ITC)
Facility: Nanobiophysics core facility
MicroCal ITC is the instrument that can directly measures heat released or absorbed during biochemical binding events, from which it calculates binding affinity (KD), stoichiometry (n), enthalpy (ΔH), and entropy (ΔS). It is widely used to study the biomolecular interactions between molecules as well as changes in conformation. The applications range from fundamental research such as the understanding and regulation of signal transduction pathways to drug discovery.
2015 Core Instrumentation Fund Awardee
Awardee: David Hinton
Equipment: N-STORM Single Molecule Super-Resolution and Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope system.
Facility: Cell and Tissue Imaging Core Facility
The N-STORM allows imaging of biological samples with a 20 fold increase in resolution of conventional confocal microscopes. The imaging method consists of sequentially activating individual photoswitchable fluorophores on biological samples to build super-resolved images of biological processes with a precision better than 20 nm