Facilities and Resources

There are a number of infrastructure resources available to individuals involved with the Center for Modular Manufacturing of Structural Tissues. Where available, links to the facility sites are provided on this page.

Environment 

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cleveland, OH

Case Western Reserve is a leading institution of research, higher education, and learning in the state of Ohio that attracts students from across the United States and abroad. CWRU is recognized nationally and internationally for its research commitment to musculoskeletal diseases. In aggregate, this is among the top-funded research areas at the institution. A major resource is the highly collaborative environment that encourages interdisciplinary research.

Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), Manchester, NH

The unique bioprocess and measurement technologies developed as part of this proposal will be integrated and demonstrated at the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) in Manchester, NH. ARMI currently occupies 3 spaces in the Manchester Millyard, including headquarters that features 2 demonstration laboratories, one of which houses the prototype Tissue Foundry system, space comprising office space for technical staff and incubator space for up to 5 small companies and currently houses Advanced Solutions Life Sciences; and a roughly 27,000 sq. ft. space, currently under construction and anticipated to be operation by July 2021, which will house multiple process development and demonstration laboratories, ISO certified aseptic manufacturing suites, the ARMI Deep Tissue Characterization Center, a QC laboratory and seating and training space for staff scientists, manufacturing operators and visiting scientists.

Resources 

Skeletal Research Center (SRC)

The SRC laboratories occupy a suite of laboratories located in the Department of Biology in the Millis Science Center and include comprehensive wet-lab and tissue culture facilities. The facilities are available to center faculty.

The SRC provides an organizational umbrella for the creative and innovative interactions of faculty. The center was established in 1986 to draw together a unique, multi-disciplinary group to jointly approach current basic research and clinical problems. The mission of the SRC is to facilitate the advancement of basic skeletal tissue research and to accelerate the translation of this new information into innovative clinical strategies.

Biotransport Laboratory (BTL)

The lab includes cell and tissue culture facilities, wet lab, imaging, bio-analytical facilities and softlithography.

Case Center for Imaging Research (CCIR)

The Case Center for Imaging Research (CCIR), a joint venture between Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland, is a state-of-the-art clinical and preclinical research imaging facility. The imaging laboratory of the CCIR encompasses approximately 9,000 square feet of research space in the basement level of Lerner Tower of University Hospitals. The imaging lab was constructed and is operated through numerous federal, state, and institutional grants (e.g., U24-SAIRP / P20).

Biomedical Image Analysis Resources

The Biomedical Image Analysis Laboratory is run by Dr. Huang; it is well equipped with computers and software for image analysis. The laboratory is housed in the Wolstein Research Building constructed in 2004 located on the campus of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine adjacent to the main University Hospital complex and Case Quad. This large laboratory was renovated two years ago as part of the department’s capital improvement plan.

Mechanics and Fabrication of Functional Biosystems (MFFB)

The Soft Tissue Biomechanics Laboratory is located in the Glennan Building and includes biomechanical testing and related laboratory support facilities. The MFFB Laboratory at CWRU operates on a shared basis for all associated investigators.

Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences

Dr. Margevicius's offices are in the School of Medicine. This statistical unit ensure that all Center studies are designed properly in order to meet their objectives. This entails advising and providing hands-on assistance to the investigators, to ensure that the approaches used are both efficient and appropriate for the type of data being collected.

Animal Resource Center (ARC)

The CWRU ARC is a full service animal care center. Experimental animals are housed in the AAALAC accredited facilities of the CWRU School of Medicine or in the athymic animal facility. Standard Operating Procedures and reference materials are available from the IACUC Office for animal use. Animal care and use is monitored for training and compliance issues by the Training and Compliance Manager.

Biochemistry Core Facility

The facility is equipped to perform amino acid sequencing, HPLC, Raman spectroscopy, etc.

Clinical & Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC)

The Clinical & Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) is the Cleveland-based part of a national consortium of research institutions working together to facilitate and transform scientific study relating to human health. With a shared goal of improved health, a broad scientific community—in the basic and behavioral sciences, in health advocacy, and in clinical practice—comes together with an engaged public community to leverage ideas and resources into results. This is a new model through which CWRU and its partners are growing the research enterprise, developing practitioners and core competencies in the discipline of clinical and translational science, and putting research findings to use in clinical practice. The CTSC encourages and enables collaborative participation in this research enterprise through communications, education, advocacy, clinical practice, shared ideas and resources, and pilot funding. Northeast Ohio researchers are seeing expedited success in their studies, and patients are benefiting, as a result.

CWRU/UH Libraries

On CWRU's main campus, Kelvin Smith Library houses a collection of nearly 1.6 million items—books, journals, microfilm, scripts, electronic content, media, theses and dissertations (both electronic and in print), and growing digital collections. The Cleveland Health Sciences Library (CHSL) operates in two locations: The Allen Memorial Medical Library and the Health Center Library. The combined collections total about 380,000 volumes and 1,700 journal subscriptions. The Allen Memorial Medical Library houses the Dittrick Medical History Center and its collection of rare books, archives, medical artifacts, and books on the history of medicine. The OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center is accessible from any computer on campus and contains more than 5,900 scholarly journal titles from 80+ publishers across a wide range of disciplines. OhioLINK also provides a diverse collection of e-books with more than 19,000 titles. In addition, numerous departments maintain smaller, specialized departmental libraries.

DEKA Research and Development

DEKA’s facility, located adjacent to the ARMI headquarters, is staffed with over 700 engineers across many disciplines, who are experienced in taking novel devices through R&D, through regulatory approval and to market. There is an onsite prototype machine shop with state of the art 5-axis CNC mills and all forms of rapid prototyping equipment. DEKA’s facilities also include an ISO8 certified cleanroom space that contains multiple injection molding presses, up to 220 tons, and is capable of both prototyping and high-volume medical disposables production. DEKA is a Tier 1 member of ARMI|BioFabUSA and therefore supports its mission.

The Electronics Design Center (EDC)

This is a world-renowned research center specializing in the development of microsensors and microsystems. The Electronics Design Center dedicates itself to the facilitation of technology transfer between a university and an industrial environment. The EDC is not only a research center but also a fully equipped microfabrication laboratory. It specializes in small, prototyping runs of devices or can provide service on devices. Its unique strength is applying microfabrication processes to non-silicon, non-traditional materials.

Engineering Services Fabrication Center

A fully equipped and professionally staffed machine shop is available for all machining through the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

In addition, Mr. Berilla maintains a machine and electronics shop and specializes in ultra-high-precision work and prototype development.

Fluorescence Assisted Cell Sorting (FACS)

This is the Central FACS Facility equipped with a Coulter EPICS sorter/analyzer in the Cancer Research Center.

Gene Expression and Genotyping Facility (GEGF)

This is a dedicated facility for gene expression studies with the Affymetrix GeneChip system. The GEGF was established in 2000 with first generation Affymetrix Microarray technology. Since then, it has expanded to include resources for genotyping applications, utilizing the Affymetrix microarray platform and the Applied Biosystems Taqman assay chemistry. The GEGF facilitates implementation of high throughput genetic technologies for the research conducted by members of the CWRU community. The Gene Expression Array Core Facility occupies 740 square feet of Cancer Center space in the Wolstein Building. The facility houses the latest in liquid handling equipment, including a newly acquired Biomek FX and several Matrix robotic systems.

High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC)

The CWRU HPCC provides a stable high performance computing environment in support of research at the university. Services include provisioning account access to our computational resources, assistance in optimizing use of those resources, and providing answers to questions about use of the resources and involvement in research activities.

National Center for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM)

The NCRM coordinates basic, translational, clinical, and commercial development of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and stem cell therapeutics across a consortium of institutions represented by CWRU, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, and commercial partners that include Athersys, Arteriocyte, and other start up biotechnology corporations. The NCRM promotes basic and translational research, provides oversight for cell and regenerative medicine therapeutics, seeks to promote collaborative multi-investigator grants by coordinating grant submissions, and seeks regional and national philanthropic support to support this mission. NCRM leads national efforts to coordinate and develop clinical therapeutic trials across a wide disease spectrum including cardiac, neural, blood, orthopedic, vascular, cancer, genitourinary, and diabetes.

Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics (CPB)

Primary goals of the CPB are to develop an infrastructure of sophisticated equipment that facilitates and maximizes shared equipment usage, as well as to offer a wide array of proteomics and bioinformatics services. The CPB is also developing and applying state-of-the-art-structural proteomics technologies to understand the function and interactions of macromolecular complexes. Their mission is to support research in protein and gene expression analysis, protein and gene modifications, and protein interactions in a wide variety of biological contexts.

CWRU Genomics Core

The Genomics Core offers genomics services including Next Generation Sequencing on the Illumina HiSeq2500 & MiSeq, genotyping and gene expression analysis using the Illumina HiScan, and Sanger sequencing options using an ABI Prism 3730 DNA Analyzer. The Genomics Core provides a centralized resource working to take the difficulty out of Next Generation Sequencing projects.

Technology Transfer Office (TTO)

The Case Western Reserve Technology Transfer Office is the resource for intellectual property management and commercialization at Case Western Reserve University. CWRU is firmly committed to efficient and ethical data sharing, material exchange, intellectual property protection and commercialization that align with the governing principles of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the NIBIB Biomedical Technology Resource Centers. The TTO is available to all investigators.