UCLA Global Bio Lab
The central focus of the Global Bio Lab at UCLA is to provide a worldwide collaborative network of researchers, public health workers, governments and the medical community with accurate and timely situational awareness. Quick detection of these diseases is critical to halting and containing their spread. In 2006, the UCLA School of Public Health, committed to create a high-tech laboratory network to combat emerging infectious diseases.
The UCLA Global Bio Lab will serve as the core automated high throughput facility to support both population based surveillance activities for infectious diseases and basic infectious diseases research.
Capabilities
The UCLA Global Bio Lab has been designed to have multiple capabilities and is a modular facility that will be capable of fully characterizing up to 10,000 influenza samples per year in everyday research mode. In emergency response mode (outbreak and/or pandemic), the facility will be capable of processing and partially characterizing up to 3,000 samples per day and enable 24/7 surge operations.
The process includes accessioning, biobanking, screening, genotyping, sample collection with handheld devices, bioinformatics, and an automated lab management system.
The -80°C SAM Systems are the biobanking systems used in this process, storing up to 60,000 samples in each system. This system will provide a facility for the preservation of national and international samples and enable rapid automated reorganization of samples for specific testing or collaborative research.
For more information on the process and capabilities of the Global Bio Lab, click here: www.ph.ucla.edu/gbl/capabilities.html
