McMaster University is home to the Farncombe Family Axenic-Gnotobiotic Facility, a state-of-the-art gnotobiotic research facility with axenic embryo transfer capabilities, operating since 2007. This 3,000-square-foot laboratory provides a controlled, germ-free environment in which to study host-microbial interactions. In addition to generating and housing gnotobiotic animals on prescribed genetic backgrounds for internal and external clients, the Facility is unique in that it has the capacity and infrastructure to enable the performance of long-term experimentation under controlled environmental conditions in diverse areas of biomedical sciences.
Dr. Heather Galipeau, Assistant Director - Email: galipehj@mcmaster.ca
Dr. Elena Verdu, Director - Email: verdue@mcmaster.ca
This state of the art sequencing facility is located within the Farncombe institute. Next generation sequencing technology includes Illumina HiSeq 1500, and MiSeq sequencers, and a Roche 454 pyrosequencer. The facility also has access to Ion PGM and Ion Proton sequencers. Standard ABI Sanger sequencing is also provided. This technology is support by an expert staff with experience in library construction for genomics, metagenomics and RNA transcriptomics, as well as amplicon sequencing for microbiome profiling. The facility also provides nCounter Nanostring services for targeted transcriptional profiling of diverse biological samples. The facility also offers fee for service bioinformatics support.
*The facility only processes nucleic acids samples, if you require nucleic acid extractions of your samples, this service can be provided through the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Microbiome Research
Christine King, Manager - Email: kingc@mcmaster.ca
Dr. Michael Surette, Director - Email: surette@mcmaster.ca
This laboratory is dedicated to high throughput microbiome analysis with a particular emphasis on culturing the microbiota associated with human and laboratory animals. The facility includes 3 anaerobic and one hypoxic chamber for growth of in the absence or limiting oxygen concentrations, automated colony pickers and liquid handling for high throughput culturing and phenotyping of microorgansims. The lab has expertise in culturing almost all members of the human microbiome from a wide variety of sample types. We also have expertise in nucleic acid extraction from all types of biospecimens and clinical samples.
Dr. Michael Surette, Director - Email: surette@mcmaster.ca