Yale Molecular Assay Resource
The Yale Molecular Assay Resource works with investigators to design, carry out and analyze a diverse portfolio of molecular assays for use in research studies. The shared resource also provides a one-stop facility for the intake, initial processing and storage of biospecimens for later analyses. We have the capability to manage small studies of a few samples, to large studies of a thousand subjects or more. In addition, we have stored biosamples from thousands of subjects in a number of existing studies, samples that can be proposed to be used to investigate novel research hypotheses.
The Yale Molecular Assay Resource is supported on a fee-for-service basis, but because of scale factors can generally provide as low or lower costs than carrying out the same assays in research or commercial laboratories outside of Yale. In the last decade, the shared resource has processed more than 50,000 assays with extremely high success rates and in many cases assay CVs less than 5%, making it an outstanding facility for laboratory-based work. The laboratory is located on the 7th floor of the LEPH building and is accessible through the basement (G-level) corridor from the medical school SHM B-wing.
Assays that we Perform:
- DNA and RNA extraction
- ELISA assays for many types of proteins and cytokines
- Non-coding RNA gene expression and mRNA gene expression and alternative splicing (including primer design for both TaqMan- and SYBR green-based RT-qPCR and single cell RT-qPCR)
- DNA genotyping (TaqMan SNP assays) (including primer design for custom TaqMan SNPs assays)
- Telomere length analyses
- Mitochondria DNA analyses
- DNA methylation quantification (PCR) (including primer designs for both methylated and unmethylated bisulfite-treatment DNA templates and bioinformatics work on promoter and CpG islands)
- DNA bisulfite conversion for DNA methylation analyses
- DNA/RNA secondary structure analysis (bioinformatics and experimental)
- Exosome (extracellular vesicles) isolation from blood, cerebrospinal fluid and other samples including neuron-derived (CA-171) exosomes or other target (protein marker)-specific exosomes
- Exosomal RNA and protein extraction
- Exosomal RNA and protein analysis
- Thorough QC procedures with typically very low CVs
Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Analyses that we Perform:
- All initial data processing of assay results into Excel, SAS and other usable formats
- Data processing in SAS, SPSS, R, Excel and other packages
- Parametric and non-parametric statistical analyses including logistic and survival analyses
- Sample size and power analyses
- Pathway analyses
- miRNA and tRNA-derived fragments (tRF) binding site prediction
- Transcriptional factor binding-site prediction
- Next generation RNA-seq analyses, bioinformatics in cancer immunotherapy (e.g., HLA and TCR genotypes, neoantigen, and other immune response-related factors) and metagenomics
- Label-free proteomics analysis
- DNA, RNA and protein sequence alignments
- Plasma and buffy coat from pancreatic cancer (1000 cases and 2000 controls), longitudinal plasma and buffy coat for 100+ individuals at high risk of pancreatic cancer, and endometrial cancer (650 cases and 670 controls) case-control studies
- Saliva DNA from a liver cancer (400 cases and 1000 controls) case-control study
- Plasma and buffy coat from a study of breast cancer survivors (600 samples)