Welcome to Viral Vector Core Facility
The new Viral Vector Core (VVC) Facility opened March 1, 2008. The vector core provides state-of-the-art lentiviral and adenoviral vector services to all faculty on the Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga campuses of UTHSC. Services include construction, production, purification and concentration of viral vectors, as well as titration and safety testing of vectors.
The vector core will expedite the research and translational efforts of faculty by providing rapid and economical production of viral vectors and sensitive standardized assays to ensure replication-competent virus is not generated. Viral vectors for gene overexpression and for gene knock-down using the latest shRNA and miR technologies are available, as are ubiquitous, tissue-specific and inducible promoters for gene expression. Custom made vectors are also available.
The vector core can also assist investigators in selecting the appropriate viral vector system to use in their experimental system, planning the plasmid constructions for vector production, methods for transduction of cells in vitro and in vivo. Vector core staff can train personnel in the investigator’s laboratories in the safe use of viral vectors and assist with standard operating procedures for registration with the Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
Conceived by Dr. Gabor Tigyi as a critical partnership between UTHSC investigators and experienced virologists and viral vector production staff, the Viral Vector Core produces quality-controlled stocks of viral vectors as investigational tools for research and as novel therapeutics. Equipment and initial start-up funds came from a Department of Defense USAMRC award to UTHSC to establish the vector core as a resource for cancer investigators on the three UTHSC campuses.
The core was developed by Dr. Tigyi and his co-Investigators Drs. Lorraine Albritton and Larry Pfeffer who comprise the core’s Scientific Advisory Committee. In a national search, Dr. Junming Yue was hired as Director of the core facility and joined the faculty in July, 2007. Formerly the managing director of a viral vector core at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Yue has extensive experience in lentiviral and adenoviral vectors. Last fall, Dr. Yue recruited Dr. Axia Ren from the UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School as a specialist in adenoviral vector production.
Located in the new Cancer Research Building, the vector core operates on a fee-for-services basis. Lentiviral vector services are available immediately. Adenoviral vector services will open later this summer. As an introductory offer, faculty will receive a 25% discount on the first two lentiviral vectors ordered through August 31, 2008 or the first two adenoviral vectors ordered through December 31, 2008. Adeno-associated vectors will also be made upon request.
Further information on the vector core for the Resources page of grant applications and quotations for budgeting vector costs is available upon request to Dr. Lorraine Albritton (lalbritton@utmem.edu) or to Dr. Junming Yue (jyue@utmem.edu).
