Core Facilities

Together with School of Medicine and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Irvine, we operate the Laboratory of Excellence for Metabolic Phenotyping. This initiative is operated in collaboration with TSE Systems and is housed in the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building.

Laboratory of Excellence for Metabolic Phenotyping

University Laboratory Animal Resources (ULAR) is committed to providing UCI a top-quality, AAALAC International-accredited animal care program that promotes integrity and excellence in research and teaching in the biological and medical sciences. ULAR provides high-quality, humane husbandry and veterinary services for all vertebrate animals in order to facilitate UC Irvine's research and teaching goals. ULAR assists UCI personnel with issues related to the responsible care and use of laboratory animals. ULAR provides training and technical support to UCI's research and teaching community.

University Laboratory Animal Resources (ULAR)

The UC Irvine Behavioral Testing Core (BTC) is an interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art facility for rigorous rodent behavior testing. Located in Biological Sciences 3, it serves researchers and outside collaborators. Supervised by Shahrdad Lotfipour, PhD, and managed by Brian Timmerman, PhD, the BTC offers: 

• Design, implementation, and analysis of behavioral experiments
• High-throughput preclinical testing and drug development
• Researcher training on procedures and analysis 

The Core provides a wide range of tests assessing attention, learning, memory, locomotion, anxiety, depression, and more. It utilizes advanced technologies like IntelliCage systems and Bussey-Saksida Touch Screen chambers, ensuring comprehensive and reproducible behavioral assessments in mice and rats.

UC Irvine BTC

The Neuropathology Core, led by Dr. Edwin Monuki, aims to uncover the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. In addition to providing families with a definitive diagnosis, brain donation enables scientists to conduct innumerable studies that explore the neuropathological changes that occur during aging and dementia and the relationship of those changes to the cognitive, functional, and behavioral symptoms present in life.

ADRC Brain Bank

The ETR provides basic, translational and clinical cancer center researchers access to and analysis of human and animal tissues. ETR leverages the technical and professional expertise of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, offering four component services: routine tissue histology/immunohistochemistry (IHC); tissue analysis, including laser capture microscopy (LCM); mouse pathology services; and genotyping services.

CONTACT ETR

The UC Irvine Biobank exists to support basic and translational science and advance precision medicine by providing researchers with high-quality, clinically annotated biological samples. Our mission is to collect, process, and store a diverse range of biospecimens using stringent handling methods, facilitating groundbreaking research that bridges the gap between laboratory discoveries and patient care. By empowering patients to participate in biospecimen donation and maintaining the highest ethical standards, we aim to accelerate the development of innovative diagnostics and therapies to improve healthcare outcomes for patients.

UC Irvine Biobank

The Biobehavioral Shared Resource (BBSR) is a shared resource of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Its mission is to support Cancer Center members and cancer researchers with expertise and services in planning, conducting, and dissemination of translational biobehavioral research. The BBSR assists cancer center investigators in conducting and communicating research of the highest possible quality. The primary activities of the BBSR include consultation on behavioral and/or quality-of-life patient-reported outcome measurements, research design, data collection, interpretation of self-report data, manuscript preparation, and counseling interventions within clinical trials.

Biobehavioral Shared Resource (Cancer Center)

The BSR supports the conception, design, implementation, analysis and reporting of research conducted by members of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. In addition, BSR faculty serve as liaisons to each of the cancer center’s Disease-Oriented Teams, keeping abreast of team developments and providing a first point of contact for assistance from the BSR with study design, data analysis, and new grant development. 

CONTACT BSR

The Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Unit’s mission is to contribute to the acceleration of treatment discoveries across the spectrum of human disease/injury by providing and promoting exceptional biostatistical collaboration and education. We support researchers on all types of projects, ranging from brief/limited consultation for statistical advice to long-term partnership on large, interdisciplinary-program projects, multi-center trials, and population-based studies.

ICTS Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD)

The UC Irvine Center for Statistical Consulting provides statistical and intellectual support to students, staff and faculty at the University of California, Irvine and as well as investigators from area businesses as well as other universities. The Center’s activities cover all aspects of the statistical design, analysis and interpretation of investigations in science and industry. Beyond just conducting data analysis, our services provide a holistic approach to our clients by providing assistance at all stages of project development from study design through final publication.

UCI Center for Statistical Consulting (Statistics)

The UC Irvine Center for Clinical Research (CCR) serves as a centralized hub for clinical research, aiming to improve health and wellness in Orange County and beyond. We accelerate the translation of medical discoveries from lab to real-world applications through carefully selected clinical trials. 

Partnered with a leading academic medical center, CCR offers top-tier care and access to cutting-edge national trials. We're more than a research unit; we're dedicated allies serving patients, researchers, and sponsors with commitment and excellence. Join us in advancing clinical research to enhance patient outcomes, as we push the boundaries of medical discovery for the benefit of our community.

CCR

The Sue and Ralph Stern Center for Cancer Clinical Trials and Research (Stern Center) is the centralized office for cancer clinical research operations at UCI, providing high-quality and efficient support for the development, activation, and completion of scientifically impactful cancer clinical trials.

Stern Center

The UCI Alpha Clinic conducts cell and gene therapy clinical trials that support the development of new treatments. As part of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and one of nine Alpha Clinics across the state of California, the clinic collaborates with leading institutions and sponsors to advance therapies using stem cell technologies.

UCI Alpha Clinic

The UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) is the university’s center for aging and dementia research. Faculty seek to understand the causes of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia and Huntington’s disease.

UCI MIND

The Center for Applied AI Research (A2IR) at University of California, Irvine is a cross-disciplinary initiative with the mission to empower health care providers, researchers, and patients through the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) healthcare applications. The A2IR team is composed of multidisciplinary team of experts across clinical medicine and data science. It acts as a resource for academia and industry partners seeking to leverage AI for biomedical healthcare applications by providing technical expertise and pioneering new approaches that will bring about significant changes in the healthcare system.

Center for Applied AI Research (A2IR)

The Research Cyberinfrastructure Center RCIC at the University of California, Irvine deploys and supports resources for the UCI research community is the focal point of contact for providing High Performance Computing clusters and Scalable Storage Systems. HPC3 is the next-generation of shared computing at UCI. HPC3 is one of UCI’s shared-computing cluster that expands upon the condo-style model of Green Planet and the now-retired HPC clusters. Condo clusters have one model of expanding capacity - users purchase physical hardware.

High Performance Computing Cluster (HCP)

The Center for Complex and Active Materials (CCAM) at UC Irvine is an NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Its interdisciplinary team combines expertise in materials design, simulation, synthesis, and characterization to create hard materials with unique properties and responsive soft materials mimicking biological processes. The Center fosters emergent research through seed projects. The CCAM attracts many junior scientists, including women, underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities, from across the nation and trains future leaders at all academic and professional levels to address critical societal and technological challenges.

Center for Complex and Active Materials (CCAM)

The Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI) and the Center for Complex and Active Materials (CCAM) at UC Irvine collaborate to advance materials research. IMRI, an interdisciplinary program under the Office of Research, aims to establish UCI as a world-leading materials research institute. It maintains world-class facilities for materials characterization and fabrication, serving academia, industry, and government. IMRI's state-of-the-art user facilities offer various techniques, including electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and surface science. CCAM's interdisciplinary team focuses on creating hard materials with unique properties and responsive soft materials mimicking biological processes, fostering emergent research and training diverse future leaders.

Irvine Materials Research Institute (IMRI)

The UC Irvine Institute for Immunology Flow Cytometry Facility is a shared resource facility located on the third floor of Hewitt Hall and offers a suite of multiparameter cytometers and professional technical assistance. Sorting, high-throughput analysis and imaging cytometry are available for user operation or fee-for-service.

Learn more about available instruments, reservations and fees on our facility webpage.

Flow Cytometry Facility (Institute of Immunology)

The SCRC Flow & Mass Cytometry Core gives investigators access to advanced single-cell and tissue-based profiling technologies, bringing high-parameter cytometry and spatial proteomics together. Researchers can characterize complex cell populations in suspension, isolate live cells for downstream applications through cell sorting and map protein expression directly within intact tissue architecture.

Support extends beyond instrument access. Core staff assist with experimental design, panel development, antibody validation, sample preparation, operator-assisted runs, user training and data analysis. Services are available to investigators across the university and outside institutions on a recharge basis.

Stem Cell Flow Cytometry

The Center for Biomarker & Biobehavioral Research (CBBR) serves as a scientific hub for biobehavioral health research. Focusing on salivary and blood-based biomarkers, CBBR promotes idea exchange, collaboration, and innovative research through hands-on experience and professional services. 

Our mission is to advance knowledge of biobehavioral processes in health and recovery, emphasizing non-invasive biomarkers with high ecological validity. Our aims are to: build collaborative programs that evaluate and translate biomarkers for improved health, provide specialized training and consultation in biomarker use, and offer laboratory services for biomarker assessment to the broader scientific community.

CBBR

The Genomics Research and Technology Hub (GRT Hub) brings emerging nucleic acid technologies to UCI and providing genome-wide analysis for clients interested in gene expression, regulation of gene expression, and genome sequence and variation. The GRT Hub is a core research facility. We provide a variety of services ranging from seminar series, workshops, quality checking DNA/RNA, library construction, long and short read sequencing, optical genome mapping, spatial transcriptomics, and bioinformatic analysis. Please explore our site for more information about the instruments and services offered at the GRT Hub. We look forward to supporting your research projects.

GRT Hub

The Facility for Imaging and Brain Research (FIBRE), located on the ground floor of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway (SBSG: map) houses a 3T Siemens Prisma scanner, a mock scanner, and data analysis facilities.  This research-dedicated MRI scanning facility, operated by Dr. Craig Stark, is designed to suit a wide range of basic and translational research programs by researchers across the UCI campus and beyond.

FIBRE

The IVFOI supports basic and clinical cancer researchers by providing expertise, imaging instrumentation and image analysis techniques. The IVFOI works to integrate molecular and structural imaging modalities to provide exclusive, first-of-its-kind multi-modality imaging technologies, providing for a better understanding of the fundamental biochemical nature of cancer and for the development of new contrast agents and molecular pathway-specific imaging probes.

CONTACT IVFOI

The UC Irvine Preclinical and Translational Neuroimaging Center (PTIC) provides magnetic resonance imaging (MRI/MRS) services to all UC Irvine campus researchers. The PTIC houses a 9.4T Bruker Biopsin Avance 2 MRI with a 30cm bore. Non-invasive imaging of in vivo and ex vivo biospecimens using standard, advanced and novel emerging techniques are available. Methods to visualize, characterize and quantify normal and pathologic processes in animal models, as well as tissue samples, can be undertaken. In addition, research specific MRI sequence development are available. Data analysis training, data storage and services can be arranged.

PTIC

The UC Irvine Medical Products Evaluation (MPE) Program utilizes the Department of Radiological Sciences' research imaging capability. It is based in the Department's space on the first floor of the Medical Sciences I B building on the UC Irvine campus.

UC Irvine MPE Program

BSL-3 Laboratory Facilities

BSL-3 laboratories are highly engineered facilities built to carry out research with high-risk infectious pathogens. UC Irvine houses Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) core facilities capable of supporting in vitro and in vivo experiments for UC Irvine faculty. Limited access may be available for external contract projects.

The UC Irvine BSL-3 High Containment Laboratory Program operates in partnership with UC Irvine Biosafety, the High Containment Laboratory Oversight Group (HCLOG), the UC Irvine Office of Research, the School of Medicine and the School of Biological Sciences to provide comprehensive operational support and uphold all regulatory and safety standards.

Learn More & Contact Us:

• Learn more about the High Containment Program and Laboratory Access on the UC Irvine High Containment Program website.
• Email biosafety@uci.edu for more information.

National BSL-3 Training Program

The National BSL-3 Training Program at UC Irvine provides comprehensive Biosafety Level 3 training, including assistance with setting up and operating high-containment laboratory facilities. Training is conducted in a dedicated BSL-3 training facility at UC Irvine and is designed for laboratory personnel, biosafety professionals, first responders, and operations and maintenance teams. Recognized as a University of California Center of Excellence, the program serves as a vital resource for BSL-3 education and support across the UC system and globally. Reach out to bsl3.training@hs.uci.edu for more information.

National BSL-3 Training Program Website

The UC Irvine GMP Facility is a state-of-the-art, multi-use center equipped with seven isolated ISO7 manufacturing rooms, each completely segregated to ensure optimal safety and functionality. It is specifically designed to support phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials for cell and gene therapy products.

UC Irvine GMP

The Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics (LFD) is a national research resource center for biomedical fluorescence spectroscopy, jointly supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) division of the National Institutes of Health and UCI. The LFD provides a state-of-the-art laboratory for fluorescence measurements with technical assistance to visiting scientists: local, national, and international. No facility or user fees are charged, except in the case of technical testing or sponsored research. Resources are maintained for spectroscopy, microscopy, biochemistry, cell culture, and data analysis. Researchers interested in using the resource should contact the user coordinator.

Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics (LFD)

Laser Spectroscopy Labs works at the intersection of light-matter interaction far field and nanophotonics, ultrafast phenomena and condensed matter physics and chemistry. Our research aims at exploring, understanding, developing, and utilizing photonics to gain deliberate control of the physical properties of media and to understand their dynamics, explore driven states of matter, and enable new functionalities of individual and condensed matter systems. Ultimately, our goal is to understand and control the nature of light-matter interaction across times and scales.

Laser Spectroscopy Labs

The Microscope Imaging Core, part of the Stem Cell Research Center, provides a list of available imaging and non-imaging equipment.

Microscope Imaging Core

The Nonlinear Optical Microscopy (NLOM) Lab at the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic develops and uses advanced biophotonics technologies, including nonlinear optical microscopy, for basic, preclinical and clinical research. Our goal is to advance these technologies as noninvasive imaging tools for studying microscopic and molecular processes involved in skin biology and disease.

We collaborate with the Department of Dermatology at UC Irvine to address challenges in bringing multiphoton microscopy into clinical practice. Our laboratory also serves as a shared resource for the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Skin Biology Research Center at UC Irvine.

Nonlinear Optical Microscopy Lab

The Optical Biology Core Facility at UC Irvine houses six advanced microscopes for diverse imaging needs. It features four confocal microscopes: Zeiss LSM 780, LSM 900, Leica SP8, and the new Zeiss LSM 980 with Airyscan and two-photon capabilities. For super-resolution imaging, it offers the Zeiss Elyra 7 Lattice SIM with SMLM. The Zeiss Z1 Light Sheet microscope provides live and cleared sample imaging. 

The core offers imaging workstations with analysis software and hosts workshops for training. Established in 1994, it's directed by Dr. Rahul Warrior and managed by Dr. Adeela Syed, providing year-round support for image acquisition and analysis.

Optical Biology Core

The Office of Research provides central campus administrative support for UCI’s research programs. Led by the Vice Chancellor for Research and his senior leadership team, the Office of Research (OR) works with other campus units to foster an environment for research and artistic activity that facilitates the discovery and dissemination of knowledge in many forms to all levels of society. OR provides central campus administrative support for UCI’s research programs.

Shared Facilities

The Center for Virus Research (CVR) fosters interdisciplinary scholarship, training, and collaborative research based on molecular virology. As an Organized Research Unit, CVR provides administrative infrastructure and laboratory facilities for virus-based studies. With global health threats from emerging and re-emerging viruses, virus research has gained new importance. CVR addresses the need for comprehensive understanding of viruses and viral diseases at local, national, and international levels. It integrates previously separate disciplines like molecular biology, immunology, neuroscience, and biomedical engineering through virus research. This highly interdisciplinary approach is key to CVR's mission in advancing virus-related knowledge and addressing public health challenges.

Proteomics Mass Spectrometry Facility

The Mass Spectrometry Facility (MSF) offers staff services and walk-up access to various mass spectrometry instruments for analyzing small molecules, peptides/proteins, and nucleic acids. Serving primarily Chemistry faculty (60%) and other UC departments (35%), MSF also accepts samples from external academic and commercial clients (5%). MSF operates 21 instruments equipped with liquid chromatography (LC), gas chromatography (GC), or matrix-assisted laser desorption (MALDI) sources, coupled with quadrupole or time-of-flight (TOF) MS systems. These instruments feature extensive pre-programmed methods suitable for most samples, with customization available. The facility caters to diverse research needs across molecular analysis disciplines.

Mass Spectrometry Facility

Our goal at the UCI High-End Mass Spectrometry Facility is to bring emerging mass spectrometric technologies to UC Irvine and provide proteomic analysis for clients interested in focused and proteome-wide protein expression, identification, quantification, and structural interrogation of proteins and protein complexes. Newly established in 2018 in conjunction with the UCI School of Medicine and as part of the matrix supported by the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the UCI Proteomics Facility aims to assists UCI Campus and Medical Center investigators, as well as providing services to other academic, non-profit, and commercial institutions.

High-end Mass Spectrometry Facility

The UCI SCRC CRISPR Core provides CRISPR gene editing services to targeted gene knock-out or knock-in/point mutation lines. For questions, please contact scrc-crispr@uci.edu 

CRISPR Resources

Few discoveries in biology have as great a transformative potential for altering modern medical research as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Given the promise of these cells, the UCI Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center established the iPS Cell Core, led by Dr. Mathew Blurton-Jones, which manages a National Alzheimer’s Disease iPS Cell Bank to share resources with investigators.

iPS Cell Bank

The UC Irvine Transgenic Mouse Facility (TMF) core facility provides services for the design, generation, breeding, genotyping, importing, and preserving genetically-modified mice and embryonic stem cells. In addition to academic clients at UCI, we support academic investigators at several other sister UC-campuses and numerous other universities throughout the USA as well as providing these services to commercial clients. The TMF's research associates have a combined 130 years of experience in generation of genetically engineered mice. Our experience can be your advantage.

Transgenic Mouse Facility (TMF)

The Center for Neural Circuit Mapping (CNCM) Viral Vector Core assists investigators in the development and production of viral vectors for in-vivo and in-vitro experimentation purposes. Our state-of-the-art equipment, coupled with our expertise, allows us to ensure high-quality products. Once your orders are completed, we will provide all related sequence data, vector maps, plasmids and ready-to-use viruses. Our facility has a UCI-approved, recharge-based service platform, and we accept both UC and external orders.

CNCM Viral Vector Core