Preclinical Models are any system that helps researchers understand the human body, especially disease. This includes both in vitro systems (cell lines) and in vivo systems (laboratory animals). This shared resource of the Koch Institute provides fee-for-service support to all MIT investigators who utilize specialized in vitro cells such as stem cells, organoids, or primary cell lines and/or novel mouse models to study human diseases such as cancer. While the majority of the projects we support involve the generation of a new model system, such as CRISPR-mediated gene editing in a mouse to introduce a mutation that mimics one found in patients, we have extensive experience with optimization of finicky cell cultures and are available to tackle any challenge with you.
We provide a customizable set of service options to match the specific needs of each project, including consultative advice and troubleshooting, complete tissue culture and microinjection servces within our dedicated facilities or hands-on training to enable investigators to perfom these experiments either at their own laboratory or within our facilities.
Services are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis after approval.
Access is available to all members of the MIT community, to the extent permitted by available capacity. Priority access is given to KI members, NCI-funded research projects and other contributing user groups in recognition of funding support. In special circumstances, access may be available to non-MIT users (details available on request from the Scientific Director, Aurora Burds Connor).
Please email us. (escore@mit.edu)
The Preclinical Modeling Facility is supported in part by funding provided to the Koch Institute from a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant. We are thankful for the support that has been provided by a grant from the National Institutes of Health to the Cell Migration Consortium.