Brody's Group

Within the NHLBI-PEN project, the Schuster group plans to deliver therapeutic genes (e.g., the beta2-adrenergic receptor gene) via loaded nanoparticles in a lung specific manner and to compare the efficiency/effectiveness of this delivery strategy to viral vectors. In addition, this group plans to demonstrate that nanomaterials can be used to directly image endogenous (e.g., COX2) and exogenous (transgene) gene transcription using nanoparticles carrying anti-sense PNAs and to compare the imaging signal to conventional non-imaging assays (e.g., Northern, RT-PCR).

The Schuster group occupies 1200 sq. ft. of "dry" lab space on the 4th floor of the Clinical Sciences Research Building, as part of the Radiological Sciences Division. This area is also used for all off-line PET data analyses. There are workstations available for 10 lab members. Dr. Schuster's imaging technology and computer systems for his laboratory consists of a Sun Enterprise 250 Server (dual processor) running SUNOS UNIX, a Hewlett-Packard 9000/700 series Unix-based workstation, and 11 Dell PCs running NT or XP OS with 21" Dell Trinitron monitors. Relevant PET image analysis software includes VIDA (Volumetric Image Display and Analysis), AsiPro and Analyze (Mayo Clinic). Dr. Schuster’s group also has ~ 250 sf laboratory space on the sixth floor of the McDonnell Pediatric Research Bldg. This laboratory space is in an “open” configuration and is immediately contiguous to other bench scientists, many of whom collaborate with Dr. Schuster. Adjoining facilities on this research floor contain a wide range of core support available to everyone in the facility, including environmental rooms, tissue culture rooms, computer rooms, dark rooms, microscopy rooms (including a confocal core facility and an intravital core facility), a histology core, a mouse dissection core, beta radiation counters, and gamma radiation counters. Laminar flow hoods, automated ELISA plate reader, incubators, high speed and ultracentrifuges, Fisher model pH meters, gel units for DNA, RNA, and protein analysis, electrotransfer apparatus, gel dryer, speed vacuum, thermal cyclers, microcentrifuges, liquid scintillation counter, chromatography apparatus, HPLC, photoprocessor, videomicroscope, shaking and stationary water baths, tissue homogenizers, tissue sonicators, spectrophotometer, vortex mixers, stirring plates, cold rooms, liquid nitrogen tanks, freezers (-20 and -70C) as well as walk-in refrigerators and freezers are available to Dr. Schuster’s laboratory. This equipment is shared with other investigators in the facility with access assured.