Advanced Research Technologies
Antibody Service
Established in 1991, the Monoclonal Antibody Facility is located at WEHI’s Biotechnology Research Centre. The facility provides a range of monoclonal and polyclonal related services and is available to external research organisations as well as WEHI researchers. The facility prides itself on being able to provide researchers with a personalised service, while maintaining competitive pricing with fast turnaround times. The facility has attracted an impressive client list during its 18 years of operations.
Bioservices
The Bioservices Department is located on four sites. The primary breeding facility, the Clive and Vera Ramaciotti Laboratories at Kew, produces Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) mice of standard inbred strains. The colonies are subjected to rigorous genetic and microbiological testing and are free of all known mouse pathogens including Helicobacter and Norovirus. The germ-free isolator unit is unique in Australia.
Experimental mice are housed in Parkville and in the Bundoora Biotechnology Centre. The health status of the mice is monitored for an extensive range of pathogens, and the micro-isolator caging behind a barrier in the latter facility maintains mice with a health status equivalent to the SPF mice.
All mice not bred at WEHI and all those imported from around the world are housed in our AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Service) approved quarantine facility located within the LaTrobe Central Animal House. In these premises, Bioservices also maintains a rabbit colony for the production of monoclonal antibodies.
Bioservices staff, numbering over 100, undergo extensive in-house training and are encouraged to study for the Diploma of Applied Science (Animal Technology). Staff frequently assist the wider research community with training and advice.
Flow Cytometry
The Flow Cytometry Centre provides flow cytometry services to WEHI scientists and their colleagues. This expert facility was first established in 1977, when WEHI acquired the first cell sorter in Australia and recruited physicist Dr Frank Battye to set up operations. Today, the Cytometry Centre houses 5 cell sorters and 7 flow cytometry analysers and will expand further in size and capability as a result of the WEHI Redevelopment program.
Flow cytometry is a technology that allows simultaneous multiparametric analysis of the physical and/or biochemical characteristics of single cells flowing through a detection apparatus. Flow cytometry and concurrent cell sorting is frequently used to identify the various cell types present in a biological tissue and to determine their developmental or functional relationships. It has wide-ranging application in immunology, haematology, infectious diseases and cancer.
High Throughput Chemical Screening Facility
High-Throughput Chemical Screening (HTCS), an enabling technology spanning the interface between biology and chemistry, involves the testing of several hundred thousand compounds against a single target using a high capacity assay. The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s HTCS facility was established in partnership with the Bio21 Cluster in 2003, through grants of over $4 million from the Institute and the Victorian Government's Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (DIIRD).
One of a small but growing number of HTCS groups operating in academic institutions world wide, this impressive facility comprises state-of-the-art automation systems and a unique library of over 100,000 diverse, “lead-like” chemical small molecules. The infrastructure is designed to provide flexibility, accommodating assays based on molecular targets (enzymes, receptors, protein-protein interactions etc) and mammalian cells (high-content imaging, luciferase reporter genes, viability/cytotoxicity indicators). HTCS staff have considerable expertise in the development of high capacity assays and work collaboratively with biomedical researchers and medicinal chemists to discover lead compounds for further development into new therapeutics. The HTCS Facility undertakes projects with both academic research groups and biotechnology companies.
The HTCS Facility has completed 24 screening projects since its inception, one of which has successfully led to licensing agreements between WEHI and Genentech and Abbott Laboratories. The HTCS Facility also collaborates with the Co-operative Research Centre for Cancer Therapeutics (CRC CTx). The HTCS Facility is rapidly becoming established as a pivotal technology platform for the translation of fundamental biology discoveries to important drug discovery and chemical biology tools and applications in the Australian biomedical community.
Imaging
The Imaging Facility will be enlarged greatly in space, capabilities and instrumentation as a result of our new building development. Our plans are to provide a platform with the equipment and expertise for researchers to realise and analyse experiments requiring advanced digital-imaging microscopy. In particular, we will specialise in "Dynamic" imaging, which targets living cells and tissues, with the aim to measure functional dynamics of biological processes occurring in space and time.
Information Technology Services
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute’s Information Technology Service supports a unified network across all sites of the Institute. All staff and students have access to desktop or laptop computers with links to central file storage, email and intranet and internet connectivity. Software resources and databases are provided covering all areas of the science and administrative functions of the Institute. A supportive computational and programming environment including high performance computing is provided for those scientific endeavours with more complex IT needs such as Bioinformatics, Structural Biology and Systems Biology.
The wide variety of scientific endeavours of the Institute often rely on unique software and hardware environments that have evolved globally in each field over the last two decades. This heterogeneous mix of computing facilities combined with the diverse network creates a challenging dynamic IT environment that results in WEHI ITS being attractive to first-class, stable and supportive IT professionals.
Joint ProteomicS Laboratory (JPSL)
JPSL, a joint initiative of WEHI and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), was established in 1983 to make cutting-edge analytical technology for protein and peptide characterisation available to both institutes. It now undertakes advanced proteomics. JPSL comprises two separate but interrelated components: a research arm led by Professor Richard Simpson and a high throughput service facility managed by Ms Heather Patsioutas.
Mouse Gene Services
The mouse is an indispensable model for studying basic biological mechanisms and understanding human disease. The ability to make specific alterations to the mouse genome via transgenesis or targeted gene inactivation yields valuable models of human diseases, such as cancer and diabetes. The mouse Embryonic Stem Cell Laboratory produces embryonic stem cell lines harbouring specific genetic changes. The Central Microinjection Service offers a pro-nuclear and blastocyst injection service, and manages the central cryopreservation repository (for both sperm and embryos). CMS also offers an in vitro fertilization service. Both services are operated by highly trained experienced technologists. The fees charged to researchers are determined on a cost-recovery basis.