Mission Statement
The High Containment Biological Safety Laboratory Core seeks to serve the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and surrounding research communities by enabling access to experimentation with high containment pathogens in a safe and compliant environment through investigator partnerships and integration of innovative research protocols.
Vision Statement
Deliver superior quality research services with high containment pathogens to advance the world’s understanding of infectious disease for development of novel therapeutics and vaccines.
Personnel
Director: James F. Papin, PhD; Associate Professor, Pathology
Assistant Director: Jason Larabee, PhD; Assistant Professor of Research, Microbiology and Immunology
Laboratory Manager: Arto S. Baghdayan, MS
Laboratory Support: Ruicai Gu, PhD; Postdoctoral Fellow
Services
Neutralizing Titer 100 – This assays determines the titer of serum antibody required to neutralize 100% of virus in a sample. Currently we are running this assay for SARS-COV-2 using serum or plasma samples. However, this assay can be adapted to other sample types and viruses upon inquiry.
Neutralizing Titer 50 – This assay is conducted in the same fashion as the Neutralizing Titer 100 assay, but the read out is the titer of antibody that blocks 50% of infection. This assay can be used in place of the Neut100 assay when a more precise determination of differences between samples might be required. Please inquire with laboratory staff if this assay may be right for your research project.
Tissue Culture Infectious Dose 50 (TCID50) – The TCID50 assay is designed to quantitate viruses in either stocks or research samples that do not plaque well on monolayers. We are currently using this assay to quantitate SARS-CoV-2 stocks and research samples. You may be interested in this assay if you are looking to determine the effect of a specific treatment on viral growth.
Viral Plaque Assay – The plaque assay is a tried and true method to quantitate viral stocks as well as the amount of virus in a specific research sample for those virus that plaque well on monolayers such as West Nile Virus, Zika virus, etc….
Viral Growth Kinetics – This assay incorporates either TCID50 or plaque assays to follow the growth of virus over time in a specific culture. This assay offers a more in depth look at virus replication in the presence of anti-viral therapies.
Viral Infectivity Assay – An infectivity assay is often used to determine if a certain cell line or primary cell is susceptible to infection. This may be to determine viral receptors/alternative receptors, or to infect known permissible cells in a system that will allow fixation and subsequent microscopy.
Viral Inhibition Assay – The inhibition assay is very similar to the Neutralizing titer assay, though would be appropriate when looking at the ability of a certain compound or protein (or lack of expression of a protein) to inhibit viral replication. Often this assay is combined with a TCID50 or Plaque assay to quantitate resulting time point. Investigators should consider the use of multiple time points post infection to determine viral growth kinetics in the presence of the inhibitor of interest.
BSL3 Hourly Usage – An hourly usage charge can be used to design experimentation by facility personnel that does not fit the above assays. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have a custom experiment you would like to discuss, or if you would like to inquire about any of the above services.
Request Services
https://ouhsc.corefacilities.org/account/login
HCLAB@ouhsc.edu
Facilities
The HCLAB core is located one the first floor of BRC North Rm 116.
Acknowledgements and Publication Authorship
HCLAB P.01 – Acknowledgement and Publication Guidelines
The following guidelines are offered as a measure to ensure that research performed in the HCLAB is appropriately recognized and cited, though the principal investigator of the project ultimately decides authorship.
Authorship – The following activities should warrant authorship
Acknowledgment – The following activities should warrant acknowledgement
The following language would be appropriate for acknowledgement of HCLAB’s contribution to the project:
For the Materials and Methods section, “________________ was performed by the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center High Containment Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory Core (Oklahoma City, OK).”
At the end of the manuscript Acknowledgement section, “We thank the High Containment Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory Core at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (Oklahoma City, OK), which provided ______________ service.”
It may also be appropriate to consider specific HCLAB scientist, depending upon the level of contribution, and include their name specifically in the acknowledgements.
Reference Material.