REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT RIVERSIDE
UC Riverside supports a broad range of research including areas of significance to human health such as metabolism, neurobiology, lipid and hormonal signaling, tumor genesis, wounding, nutrition, aging, disease, and pathogenesis. The advent of genomics technologies is driving research in all health-related research. In particular, in the past several years the introduction of massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies is making possible an era in which genomes can be sequenced to understand the disease states of individuals in unprecedented detail. This instrumentation is also displacing established approaches for dissecting gene expression by permitting the cost-effective sequencing of whole transciptomes for discovery and quantification. The technology is also driving a revolution in metagenomics by providing an understanding of global patterns of chromatin modification that were inaccessible even to large genome centers just a few years ago. In recognition of the necessity to maintain competitiveness in meeting the challenges of biomedical research, demand for deep-sequencing services has been immense nationwide resulting in multi-month waiting times for access to services, especially at facilities operating the Illumina GA II which is highly flexible and well-established among academic genome centers. UC Riverside has responded by acquiring a single Illumina system which is housed in the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology (IIGB), which houses four technology cores (Genomics, Microscopy, Bioinformatics, Proteomics) in a single facility. The mission of IIGB is to use its significant interdepartmental infrastructure to promote research across the campus. The single GAII system is administered jointly between IIGB?s Genomics and Bioinformatics Cores. However due to very high demand, the capacity of the existing system will be greatly exceeded requiring an additional GA II system and essential computational capacity. The IIGB operates across departments and is highly motivated to serve a broad base of laboratories. Thus, the funding of this instrument will be highly cost-effective and reach the maximum number of NIH biomedical and other researchers. This NIH investment will be compounded as UC Riverside will be the site of the first new medical schools in California in decades. Coupled with its diverse ethnicity and academic and research missions, the campus is a major economic driving force in the Inland Empire region of California.