Biomarkers

Core Group

 Maria Laura Gennaro, Director; Rahul Ukey, Core Manager; Natalie Bruiners, Ioannis Michailidis, Abhilasha Mishra, Usha Ganapathi, Rehan Khan, Alberta Onyka, Jeisac Guzman Rivera.

The mission of the NJ ACTS biomarker core is to promote and support non-oncological translational research by Rutgers investigators and their collaborators. Our team of experts in molecular and cellular biology and in immunology helps identify state-of-the-art approaches to tackle research questions in infectious and non-infectious diseases.

The core’s services span assistance in experimental design and project development, scientific collaboration and consultation. Supported by access to BSL2+ and BSL3 laboratories, the biomarker core is uniquely apt at supporting COVID-19 research.

 

Core Services
  • Consultation, experiment planning, and service outsourcing
  • Assistance with data generation for manuscript or grant preparation
  • Set up projects as collaboration
  • IgG, IgM and IgA antibody testing and titer determination
  • Detection of IgG1, IgG2, IgG3 and IgG4
  • Antibody effector functions
  • Memory B cell and T cell immunophenotyping
  • RNA flow cytometry

 

Consultation Requests

Ready to get more with Core?

Service Request Form
Please email request forms to Natalie Bruiners. We will be in contact to set up a virtual consultation to determine how the core can serve your scientific needs.

Additional Information:
Important: Because projects carried out in the facility involve pathogens, we require adherence to regulations or approvals by standard operating procedures (SOP), institutional review boards (IRB) and institutional biosafety committees (IBC) for all experiments. For additional questions regarding biosafety contact REHS: office phone (973) 972-8424.

Fee Structure
Consultation Antibody assays/T and B cell assays
Consultation Free 1 hour
NJ ACTS member $30 per hour
NJ ACTS non-member $35 per hour
Academic $40 per hour
Industry $50 per hour

 

Additional Partner Services

Immune Monitoring and Advanced Genomics Shared Resource at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey

For immunophenotyping involving scRNAseq and gene expression analysis of individual immune cell populations

a)Sample processing and storage

b)10x single cell RNA sequencing
-Amplified, barcoded cDNA from single-cell suspensions
-Library construction
-Target enrichment
-T cell, B cell and ATAC sequencing

c)Luminex serum cytokine analysis

d)Data analyzed by Rutgers core staff

Read More >>

 

NJMS Flow Cytometry and Immunology Core Laboratory

For applications involving flow cytometric analysis, cell sorting and imaging flow cytometry
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Core Supported Projects
Project Title Brief Description
miRNAs as biomarkers of asthma exacerbation Investigate circulating microRNA as non-invasive biomarkers of asthma exacerbation
Clinical trial (VIDAS-TB, Biomerieux) A whole-blood-based, fully automated platform for diagnosis of M. tuberculosis infection (multiple clinical trial phases)
Rutgers Corona Cohort (RCC) Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 over time in a longitudinal cohort of Rutgers health care workers established at the pandemic onset
SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral and cellular immune responses Detection of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies, neutralizing titer and virus-specific T and B cell responses in convalescent donors among Rutgers employees
Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Essex county, NJ Venue-based approach to study seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 using a blood microsampling device
Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in volunteer firefighters Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among firefighters recruited for the NJ Firefighter Cancer Assessment and Prevention Study
Convalescent plasma therapy To correlate the clinical outcome of convalescent plasma treatment of COVID-19 with the properties of the donor plasma
Severe SARS-CoV-2 induced illness in children To identify abnormal immune phenotypes in children diagnosed with pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome or severe acute COVID-19 illness
SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in dental health care workers To determine the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in dental health care workers
SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in people with HIV Detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody using mail in finger prick microsampling device
Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Hispanix/Latinx communities

Investigate association between race/ethnicity and SARS-CoV-2 prevalence

Seroprevalence of SARS- CoV-2 in dental patients

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies in dental patients recruited at Rutgers School of Dental Medicine’s dental clinics

Post COVID care program Detection of SARS-CoV- 2 specific antibodies in patients recruited from Saint Barnabas Medical center and studying long-term effects of COVID-19 infection

 

Publications

Please refer to our Nature protocol and list of published work:

https://experiments.springernature.com/articles/10.1038/nprot.2017.039
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2018.02127/full
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144904

 

 

Leadership Team

Maria Laura Gennaro, M.D. M.Sc.

Maria Laura Gennaro, M.D. M.Sc.

Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Public Health Research Institute
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

marila.gennaro@rutgers.edu

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Natalie Bruiners, Ph.D.

Natalie Bruiners, Ph.D.

Managing Core Director
Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

bruinena@njms.rutgers.edu