Facility policies

Policies

1. Training: Scientists on campus may be trained to use the CytoFLEX LX, MACSQuant, SH800, and Moxi Z. Please contact the facility manager to schedule training and to discuss your needs. She can help you determine which machine is best to do your analysis on. You may also choose to have the specialist run samples for you, therefore bypassing the need for instrument training.

2. Facility-run sorters: The FACSAria IIu (high speed cell sorter) and COPAS Select (Drosophila embryo and large particle sorter) must be run exclusively by our trained specialist. Users will schedule a time for the specialist to run samples. This will be done via email, but available times will be posted on the facility calendar.

3. Biosafety: The facility is classified as a Biosafety Level 2 facility. Therefore, regardless of the type of material you work with, all those using the facility will be required to attend a facility-specific safety training provided by the facility. Please contact the facility manager to schedule a training session (these training sessions are free). This also applies to those only observing instrument use.

4. Appointment booking and cancellation: A fee will be charged for anyone who signs up and fails to notify the facility that they no longer intend to use their time. One full business days' notification (as of August 4, 2025) to cancel an appointment on any instrument is required (longer cancellation notification times will apply when the facility is closed for an extended time). If a user fails to notify the facility in a timely manner, the full appointment time will be billed (minus set-up time) unless the appointment can be rebooked. Users who notify the facility in a timely manner before their appointment have a 15 minute grace period before their time is billed; failure to notify the facility will result in the appointment time being billed from the start of the appointment. If a user is late, their experiment may not be able to be completed in order to accommodate the next user. In addition, if an excess amount of time is scheduled, the entirety of the time scheduled will be billed. For example, if a researcher schedules a two hour appointment and only uses one hour, they will be billed for two hours. No shows will be billed for the entire time scheduled. Unusual or extenuating circumstances will be reviewed on a case by case basis. Please see the Scheduling Policies and Cancellation Policies pages for additional information.

5. After hours: After hours access will be granted to those who have shown competence in using analysis instrumentation. A fee will be charged for anyone who utilizes the facility after hours and fails to shutdown instrumentation, and after hours privileges will be reviewed. The fee assessed will be correspondent to the time that the instrument was left on. Instrument use is a privilege. Any misuse of of the facility or its instrumentation will lead to revocation of access.

6. Appointments: An appointment must be made to use facility equipment. Instruments are available on a first-come, first-served basis. See the facility calendar for more information.

7. Publications: There is no expectation of authorship for any of the facility staff. Core facility users should acknowledge the IUB FCCF in any publications that utilized facility instrumentation for data collection.