gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heating Units

Procurement Summary

The Occupational Allergy Team has been tasked to assess the immunological and toxicological responses to fungi through an interagency agreement with the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as part of a National Toxicology Program research activity. These studies involve murine exposures to fungi using a unique acoustical generation system that mimics the aerosolization and inhalation of dry fungal spores and processing murine tissues, including lungs, brains, and lymph nodes, for downstream analysis of immune responses. One critical analysis is the assessment of cellular immune responses in the lung and lymph node tissues via flow cytometry. Following murine necropsy, these tissues must be immediately processed and dissociated to create single cell suspensions that are then stained and analyzed via flow cytometry. To successfully perform the dissociation in real-time as mice are being necropsied, researchers in the Occupational Allergy Team require the gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heaters unit to allow for automated and reproducible dissociation. This gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heaters unit is an isolation system that is required to allow consistent and reproducible processing of tissue samples. The gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with heaters offers full automation for tissue dissociation and is enabling the dissociation up to eight samples at a time, without cross contamination and meeting the labs requirements by providing the required performance in standardization of sample processing from tissue to single cell suspension with high yield and viability. It also integrates connectivity features for traceability, which significantly increases the efficiency and quality of sample preparation. This gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heaters is also required to dissociate cells from various organs such as spleen, lymph nodes, brain, kidney etc. and make a single cells suspension and purification for studying the function of specific immune cells population during inflammation, autoimmune disease or after cellular activation with various stimuli. The unique required specifications for this instrument are tubes that bear a unique rotor/stator system for the gentle and efficient tissue dissociation or homogenization and the gentleMACS Dissociators are the only known devices that in combination with the gentleMACS Tubes can be used to dissociate or homogenize various tissues in a closed system, and process multiple samples at once without cross contamination. The team has utilized the gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heaters in previous studies that is owned by another researcher at NIOSH located in a separate building. As the need for this piece of equipment has increased, repeatedly transporting samples out of the lab has introduced the potential for sample contamination as well as reduction in cell viability during transport. The only source and instrument known to meet these specifications is the gentleMACS Octo Dissociator with Heating Unit, which is manufactured by Miltenyi Biotec in Germany.

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