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Seminar Series | Lentiviral shRNA and cDNA Facility

Overview of Vision and Objectives
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MNC Letterhead
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Instructions:
Right click on the link above, then choose Open.
The MNC letterhead appears.  
Save this onto your computer using File>Save As.
Make sure that you Save as type: Document template.
This will then go automatically to the Templates folder in Word.

Subsequently, to use the letterhead, open Word, create a new document using File/New (not CTRL-N) and select the template from Templates on my computer. The letter can be saved under the name of your choice without affecting the template.

MNC Email Signature
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Instructions:
Please note the instructions below are to install a signature on a PC using
Microsoft Outlook.

1. Right click on the link above and select save target to download the file. This is a zip file that has the elements needed to install your own signature. Unzip the file in a location that you will remember.
2. Open Microsoft Outlook, and click on Tools> Options> Mail Format.
3. Click on Signatures and select New
4. Give your new signature a name (ie: MNCyourname) and select the radio button
   Use this file as a template
5. Browse through your computer to where you downloaded the signature file. Select MNC_email_signature.html as the one you want to use.
6. Click Next
7. You will notice that Dr. Henderson has provided his signature as the sample template.  You can now edit the details of the signature for your own. 
8. Once complete, click Finish and OK
9. You will now be back at the original options box in your email account. Under Signature for new messages select MNCyourname and apply.
10. Your email messages will now contain your new MNC animated signature.

MNC FTP site
To use the Columbia MNC FTP site please click here and use the following password: mnc!MNC to upload or download files from the public server.

Internal Starter Grants
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Core Facilities Grants
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MNC Monthly Meeting Schedule 2007

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MNC External Seminar Series

To MNC Faculty:

Please send propositions and, where appropriate, date constraints to: rm2578@columbia.edu

MNC lentiviral shRNA and cDNA Facility

We would like your feedback on an initiative spearheaded by Brent Stockwell on behalf of the MNC, in potential collaboration with the Cancer and Genome Centers. The aim is to create a resource for lentiviral vectors expressing hairpin loop shRNAs for specific gene knockdown. This would allow MNC members much more easily to perform loss-of-function studies both in vitro and in vivo. Such studies could be focused on single genes, on functional groups of genes, or on genome-wide screens.

Thanks to unpublished work by Brent and many collaborators at Harvard and the Broad Institute, we potentially have access to large collections of lentiviral shRNAs. The plan is to target 15,000 genes for each genome (mouse and human) over 3 years (the group is about halfway into this period now and on target in terms of production). There will be 5 clones / gene, making 150,000 clones in total. As you know, the advantage of lentiviral vectors is their high efficacy and low toxicity in neuronal systems.

Since we have free access to this collection, the challenge is to set up a facility that would centralize production and handling of viral stocks for the whole university. The scale and cost of this operation will depend very much on the number of potential users and screens, as will the practical details of organization. It may also be possible in a second phase to extend this operation to a collection of full-length cDNAs in lentiviral vectors.

We need to come to a fairly rapid decision on MNC involvement in such a facility. If you are interested in being involved in further discussions, please send us a few sentences describing the use your lab would have for such a facility, with an indication of timeframe and number of clones/screens you anticipate using.

Brent (bs2198@columbia.edu) has offered to respond to any questions you have.