$20,000

Purchase of a communal automated microplate DNA reader

Since 1925, The Banting Research Foundation has supported the BBDMR in its goal of conducting leading-edge medical research in the spirit of Drs. Banting and Best. The BBDMR is among the leading institutes in the world studying how the genetic blueprint of of the cell, DNA, is organized into thousands of functional units called genes that encode individual proteins and how this blueprint is translated into proteins that carry out essential cell functions. The department specializes in studying multiple arrays of genes and proteins to follow the flow of information from DNA to protein. The Banting Research Foundation helped to fund the purchase of an automated microplate DNA reader that will be used by investigators in the department to scan arrays of genes in genome-wide screens used in high throughput assays in bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells. These studies will identify metabolic pathways essential for normal function and deranged in diseased states such as cancer that could serve as therapeutic targets for drugs to treat human disease.