Dear Colleagues,

It's been a long time, but we are finally able to print S. pombe microarrays. We have printed about 600 arrays, and have hybridized a bunch, and so far everything appears to work very well. We haven't yet finished "the facility"-- we have to set up more analysis software, we have to set up a web-site, and we have to set up billing. Nevertheless, we can print, hybridize, and scan arrays, and get very nice-looking data. Our arrays have approximately 6000 spots of PCR products representing predicted ORFs of S. pombe.

If you have a microarray experiment you would like to do, we are now more-or-less in operation to help you with it, at least at the most basic level. We imagine that you will do an experiment, make aminoallyl dUTP-substituted cDNA, and ship us this cDNA. We will couple Cy3 and Cy5 fluorescent dyes to your cDNA, hybridize it to an array (or two or three, if you like), scan, and you will be notified by e-mail when your results are posted on our secure server.

We will eventually have to get you to re-imburse the costs for making your arrays, doing your scans, etc., but the accounting at our end is not yet set up for this. Accountants willing, these costs will be very roughly $100 per experiment (including hybridization and scanning, but not including labeling). Until the accountants have finished, the cost will be $100, to be billed in the near future.

Although in the most general sense we consider ourselves collaborators on all the facilities experiments, this does not imply that anyone from the facility would necessarily be a co-author on any papers. Co-authorship, if any, would be determined by the usual research standards of a high degree of involvement. That is, if we are just hybridizing arrays for you, scanning, and posting results, then this would not imply co-authorship; but if someone at the facility helps design the experiment, or is intimately involved in data analysis, then that might deserve co-authorship on any papers.

If you have a microarray experiment you would like to do, get in touch with Janet (janet.leatherwood@sunysb.edu, tel.1-631-632-9644) or Bruce (bfutcher@ms.cc.sunysb.edu , tel. 1-631-632-4715), and we can discuss details and send you our favorite protocols We can do the labeling and analysis, if necessary.

We feel that both the capabilities of the facility, and the needs and desires of the users, will evolve rapidly, so it is probably premature to have a lot of detailed policies at this point. Mostly, we are anxious to get some experiments going. We will feel our way forward.

Please pass this information on to any academic S. pombe researchers you think might be interested. However, if you do pass it on, please emphasize that we are not a business or commercial enterprise; rather, we are operating an NIH-sponsored facility on behalf of academic researchers. These arrays are strictly an academic resource, and cannot be used in conjunction with any company funded or commercially related research or projects.

Yours truly,

Janet and Bruce