Technology Development and Support
Modern research often needs technologies that cannot be established any longer by one single laboratory alone, because the machines and their maintenance are too expensive. Such technologies are then provided to all surrounding laboratories by so-called technology core facilities. The National Center of Competence in Research in Molecular Oncology currently supports four technology core facilities.
The Bioinformatics Core Facility employs professional computer scientists that help the general laboratory researchers with the computer-based analysis of large data sets that result from certain experiments like whole-genome analyses.
The Mouse Facility allows carrying out experiments to investigate cancer development in mice. Such experiments are necessary since the complex processes of tumor development can only be investigated in a living organism.
The Microscopy, Imaging and Morphology Facility is equipped with high-end microscopes and imaging computers, that enable the visualization of biologic processes in specimen like tumor tissues. A laboratory within the facility produces sections from, for example, tumor samples, to allow the microscopic investigation of cancer tissues.
The Clinical Tumor Proteome Analysis Facility performs mass spectrometry on blood and tumor samples to analyze specific molecules, the proteins. These molecules can be different between healthy persons and cancer patients, which can be useful for diagnosis, but can also indicate causes for the tumor development.