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Vision Research Center

Investigators

VRC Facilities

Other Vision Research at Penn

Vision Science Seminar

 

 

Vision Research Center Facilities

VRC services are generally available to Penn NEI grant holders. Some limited funds are available to support pilot research expected to lead to an NEI grant proposal/renewal. If you have such a project, please send us (peter@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu; brainard@psych.upenn.edu) an email request for approval in advance of using the services. The email should include a short description of the project and services requested.

A summary of the modules and procedures follows. Services for all modules are available to all VRC members, with your primary point of contact being the module director listed below.

Please remember to acknowledge the support of the core grant in any publications that describe work that received support from it (P30 EY001583).

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or suggestions.

Peter Sterling: peter@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu; 215-898-9228
David Brainard: brainard@psych.upenn.edu; 215-573-7579

 

 

Dr. Peter Sterling, Director Dr. David Brainard, Co-director
123 Anatomy-Chemistry/6058
peter@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu
215-898-9228
315C 3401 Walnut/6228
brainard@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-573-7579

 

List of University of Pennsylvania facilities associated with the Vision Research Center:

 

Biostatistics
Mary Brightwell-Arnold, Director
3535 Market, Ste 700/3309
maryba@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-615-1504
Dr. Gui-Shuang Ying, Faculty Consultant
3535 Market, Ste 700/3309
gsying@mail.med.upenn..edu
215-615-1514

Consultation in Clinical Trial and Experimental Design and analysis of statistical data. No co-pay required at present.

 

Computation
Richard Zorger, Director
117A Anatomy-Chemistry/6058
zorger@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-573-9022
Dr. Robert G. Smith, Faculty Consultant
122F Anatomy-Chemistry/6058
rob@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu
215-573-3211

Assistance with computer hardware, software and communications. No co-pay required at present.

 

Illustration
Mary Leonard, Director
79D John Morgan
mleonard@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-898-0874
Dr. Ed Pugh, Faculty Consultant
BRB I/6100
pugh@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-898-2403

Preparation of scientific drawing, photography, posters, and slides. VRC will pay 50% of standard costs, with 50% co-pay coming from individual investigators' NEI grants. In addition, any rush charges must be paid from the individual's grant.

 

Instrumentation\Electronics
Fred C Letterio, Director Machine Shop
21 LL/6018
letterio@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-898-7127
Dr. David Brainard, Faculty Consultant
315C 3401 Walnut/6228
brainard@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-573-7579
John A Labenski, Director Electronics Shop 
A15 Solomon Labs 
jala@psych.upenn.edu 
215-898-8092

Design and fabrication of special purpose, novel instrumentation. VRC will pay 70% of labor costs, with 30% labor and 100% of materials costs to be covered by investigators' grants. The shops will provide a rough estimate of costs towards the start of each job, but because of the unique nature of each job these should be regarded as ballpark numbers to guide decision making, not as binding contracts.

 

Molecular Biology
Ryan Gruber, Director
315 Stellar Chance/6100
ryanbg@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-898-9838
Dr. Dwight Stambolian, Faculty Consultant
313 Stellar Chance/6100
stamboli@mail.med.upenn.edu
215-898-0305

DNA sequencing and gene mapping.VRC will pay roughly 85% of the cost per sample. At present we estimate the cost per sample to be about $15 and will set the grant co-pay at $2.50 per sample. We will adjust this as needed to reflect actual costs. This module is also being augmented with a real-time PCR machine; details to follow once it is up and running.

 

Electrophysiology/Imaging
Dr. Noga Vardi / Dr. Michael Freed, Directors
122B Anatomy-Chemistry/6058
noga@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu
215-898-4520
122E Anatomy-Chemistry/6058
michael@retina.anatomy.upenn.edu
215-573-3211

Multi-electrode recording in vitro and whole-cell recording + confocal microscopy. The VRC is providing the equipment for this module, with supplies to be covered by the individual investigator's grant.