BioPolymers, Automated Cellular Infrastructure, Flow, and Integrated Chemistry Materials Innovation Platform (BioPACIFIC MIP) is a platform dedicated to scalable production of bio-derived building blocks and polymers from yeast, fungi, and bacteria. Automated high-throughput synthesis and characterization of bio-derived polymers aims to accelerate discovery and speed development of new high-performance materials.

Seeing molecules, materials, and molecular machineries at atomic resolution and in three-dimension is critical to nanoscience. In order to facilitate this, the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN) was established at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) through a major instrumentation grant from NIH and support from UCLA. EICN provides advanced electron imaging tools for a broad range of research, covering a scale range from tens of micrometers to angstroms, and delivering valuable structural information for cell biology, microbiology, biomolecular, molecular, and materials sciences. The state-of-the-art EICN facility offers all major electron microscopy (EM) modalities.

The Molecular Screening Shared Resource (MSSR) is a core facility open to all research labs on campus as well as biotech and the pharmaceutical industry. The services provided include assay development and execution, data mining and the use of robotic high throughput screening (HTS) technology.

For small molecule drug discovery, a total of roughly 300,000 compounds in various libraries are available. We have libraries covering FDA approved drugs, kinases, natural products as well as human metabolites. Assays will be automated to enable rapid screening of 10,000+ tests per diem using our custom robotics. Also available are accompanying assay development services that can take advantage of our set of 20 validated reporter gene constructs. We have high content screening capabilities or support all plate reader based readouts including luminescence, alpha, TF-FRET, FRET, fluorescence, OD etc..

For CRISPR cell line engineering, we offer CRISPR services such as the generation of KO cells in all cellular backgrounds as well as the execution of CRISPR screens using Cas9 or Cas-i/a. Also available are services for the generation of cell lines overexpressing any transgene desired through lentiviral or transposon based technologies. Also available are arrayed cDNA, siRNA, shRNA and CRISPR sets for the mouse/human genome. Individual clones are any of these libraries (cDNA, lentiviral cDNA , shRNA and CRISPR) are available against nearly any gene in the genome. Resulting cells are available as populations or individual clones.

For automated confocal or widefield imaging, we provide services including the robotically automated imaging of samples in multi-well format (e.g. 6 well, 96 well and 384 well plates) as well as slide based imaging. The services include fully automated imaging which does not require any manual labor.

For image analysis we provide services that take advantage of an industrial strength data processing pipeline that offers conventional image analysis through pre-formulated algorithms as well as novel artificial intelligence based image analysis capabilities that enable quantification of complex phenotypes (e.g. neurite outgrowth, colony formation etc.) and also enable image analysis from phase contrast images without fluorescent stains. This platform also offers deep learning approaches towards phenotype classification algorithms useful for categorizing of phenotypic cellular responses.

The NPC Technology Center offers a curated collection of high-end scientific instrumentation to enable the physicochemical characterization of nanoscale materials, devices, and systems under a wide range of experimental conditions. Our technical capabilities and expertise include surface analysis by Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM); hydrodynamic size and surface charge analysis by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Zeta Potential (ZP) measurements; elemental and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).

ALMS is a Leica Microsystems Center for Excellence and provides microscopy services, consultation, and support for the application of novel microscopic and spectroscopic methods and advanced image analysis techniques for the study of macromolecules, cellular dynamics and nano-scale characterization of bio-materials. The facility provides a collection of high-level, customized biological fluorescence microscopes and small-animal imaging devices that provide the ability to study biological processes with high spatial and temporal resolution in whole organisms and in living cells down to the single molecule detection level with nanometer-accuracy. Located on the basement and second floors of the CNSI building, two optical suites of 1,000 square feet each were specifically designed to house our microscopes with the required environment control (low vibration, air-filtered, air-conditioned to ±1°C and light-tight) and services. The facility currently provides the following services: Wide-field Fluorescence Imaging Microscopy (on a limited basis), Confocal One-Photon and Two-Photon Laser Scanning Microscopy, (both point scanning and spinning disk), Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), microscopic and macroscopic Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIM) with Time-Correlated-Single-Photon-Counting (TCSPC) and Near-Infrared (NIR) Detection, Stimulated Emission Depletion laser-scanning microscopy (STED) (a super-resolution technique), both microscopic and macroscopic (small animal) spectral unmixing and laser capture microdissection.