Policies

I. Safety

The laboratory is approved at BSL-2 and is subject to the rules, regulations, and guidelines that apply to the use of biohazardous material in the research lab. The facility does not contain a biological safety cabinet. All sample manipulations which require BSL-2 containment much take place prior to entry into the facility.
All laboratory personnel who handle human cells and other potentially infectious materials are required to follow BSL-2 universal precautions.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Operators must wear appropriate PPE for the procedures and materials to be analyzed. A lab coat or disposable Tyvek gown and gloves must be worn at all times when operating instruments; gloves are provided by the FCCS SRL. Protective eye wear is available in the laboratory and is required when handling BSL-2 material including any human materials
Waste. The FCCS SRL does not dispose of hazardous biological or chemical waste nor samples containing hazardous chemical waste, such as samples that were stained with propidium iodide, which have not been processed through the cytometers. Investigators are advised to bring back the remaining biological waste to their laboratories for proper disposal. Discard all contaminated materials (sample and collection tubes, pipettes, pipet tips, gloves) into appropriate biohazard containers.
Radioactive samples are prohibited in the Flow Cytometry Facility

The FCCS SRL is staffed during regular business hours, Monday through Friday. Requests for staff services outside of these hours are by special appointment only.
The core uses ilab for equipment reservations and service requests, all users must have an account already set up in ilab before using the core.
The Bio-Rad ZE5 and Cytek aurora CS (acquisition only) may be reserved by trained users for independent use at any time prior to the start of an experiment providing instrument availability. Users may reserve the equipment outside of regular business hours.
Assisted use for the Bio-Rad ZE5 or acquisition on the Cytek Aurora CS may be booked at any time prior to the start of an experiment providing both the instrument and staff are available.
Cell sorting on the Cytek Aurora CS is performed only by core staff and may only be reserved within normal business hours at least one day in advance prior to the start of the sort or by special appointment.

The FCCS Flow cytometry core price is based on a per use rate, depending on the type of service needed. The most recent price list for equipment use and services can be found on University of Tennessee institutional cores website (http://www.uthsc.edu/research/institutional-cores/index.php
Real-time equipment usage and services are tracked through iLab using the kiosk computer interface. Prior to the start of an experiment, users will log into iLab, navigate to the kiosk interface, and click the green “Start” button next to the reservation. When the reservation is finished, users will click the blue “Finish” button and confirm the reservation is finished by clicking the “Finish session” in the pop-up box.

Prior to being allowed independent access to or performing work in the facility, all personnel are required to take a hands-on training course from FCCS SRL staff which includes facility and instrument training unless otherwise approved by the FCCS SRL Director. You cannot train others in your lab to use the instrumentation.
Facility training will orientate the users to the facility, including knowledge of safe working practices and decontamination procedures, and FCCS SRL policies. Instrument training on the Bio-Rad ZE5 and Cytek Aurora CS- Acquisition will include proper startup and shutdown procedures, basic instrument quality control and operation, and generation of data as outlined in FCCS SOPs 01, 03, and 04.

Investigators must provide all reagents and supplies, except for sheath buffer for the instrument, which is provided by the core. Trained users are responsible for machine set-up, Checking QC status for the day of use, first user runs QC, analysis, data collection, and machine clean-up after use.
Assisted-use users must provide all reagents and supplies, except for sheath buffer, which is provided by the core. The core operator is responsible for machine set-up, analysis of samples, data collection, and machine clean-up. Users may either observe the operator during acquisition of their samples or may drop off their samples (List of samples prior to acquisition) to the core and return for their raw (unanalyzed) data. Data will be provided in FCS format 3.0 or higher unless otherwise requested by the investigator. Investigators are responsible for providing flash drives, portable hard drives, or other means to transfer data.
Problems with instruments or software performance (including clogs, dirty equipment, etc.) must always be reported to FCCS SRL staff (either email or verbal) and recorded in the instrument logbook.
Trained users must follow all FCCS core policies and procedures.

Data should be exported from all instruments immediately after acquisition. The FCCS SRL is not responsible for data collected or analyzed on the instruments or any of the software dedicated computers and is not responsible for archiving. Users are strongly encouraged to take their data with them after they are done running/analyzing samples. All computers are networked so investigators can connect to their lab’s server. Flash drives and portable hard drives are allowed.
FCCS staff will delete experiments to free up disk space as necessary. Users will be notified by email (minimum of two emails) at least two weeks in advance prior to data removal. Upon notification, users are responsible for removing their data from the computers within the two-week time frame. Following the notification period, the FCCS staff will assume data has been archived and will delete the information.

Any work (written, or oral including posters, slide presentations, thesis, or manuscripts) that includes data generated utilizing the FCCS SRL instruments or staff should acknowledge the UTHSC FCCS SRL
Any publications generated using the Cytek Aurora CS should acknowledge the S10 instrument grant. “This work was supported by NIH grant 1S10OD032329-01A1 for the Cytek Aurora CS housed in the UTHSC flow cytometry and cell sorting core”. Any publication that reports data collected using the Cytek Aurora CS must be linked to the S10 award using MyNCBI.
Guidelines for including core staff in publications can be found here: Authorship Guidelines | ABRF