Since its inception in September 2001, the facility has successfully processed thousands of microarrays and served over a hundred laboratories from different departments and programs at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson. The facility has also provided microarray services to investigators from Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital, The University of Texas Health Science Center and Institute of Biotechnology. The facility has processed microarrays for several different species including human, mouse, rat, bovine and several prokaryotic and plant species.

The facility is equipped with the required hardware and software tools for offering complete microarray services on the Affymetrix and NimbleGen platforms and printing and imaging custom DNA microarrays. Major pieces of equipment include the GeneChip system (Affymetrix), Scanner 7000G (Affymetrix), GenePIX 4000B scanner (Axon Instruments), Flexys printing robot (Genomic Solutions), Piezoarray (Perkin-Elmer), MAUI Hybridization System (BioMicro) and Bioanalyzer 2100 (Agilent Technologies).

The MCF uses the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) to evaluate projects supported by the MCF and track the workflow for the different services provided. The LIMS requires users to submit a brief description of their projects on-line. The projects are reviewed for the quality of science, design of the study and the suitability of technology to be used by scientists with expertise in basic and clinical research and biostatistics. Once approved, the users can request services from the MCF via the LIMS. LIMS enables the users to track the status of their projects and requests on-line.

The MCF provides investigators access to personnel who are highly experienced in a variety of genomics technologies and studies, as well as access to the methodologies themselves. It also avoids expensive duplication in individual faculty laboratories of personnel, facilities and equipment required for application of these powerful emerging and evolving methodologies that are changing the nature of cancer research. The fees for the services provided by the MCF are typically lower than the charges of commercially available laboratories and include value-added consultation on study design and analysis. In the last five years, the MCF received 50% or more funding support via chargeback system. This approach permits researchers to focus on study design, study initiation and data interpretation rather than technology usage, maintenance and upgrading of equipment.

Cancer Center Support Grant, a user chargeback system, and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center jointly fund the MCF. All users are required to cite the Cancer Center Support Grant CA #16672 in publications and grants that include data generated as a result of services provided by the facility.