Mission
Rutgers Cancer Institute is excited to announce a new organoid development shared resource (ODSR) that is being operationalized under the leadership of Faculty Director Michael Verzi, PhD, and with the full support of Shared Resource Management. The service is being developed in response to enthusiastic member support from surveys performed in 2018 and 2022.
The mission of the ODSR is to offer Rutgers Cancer Institute researchers advanced cancer models of tumor initiation and growth utilizing three-dimensional culture techniques to maintain patient-derived cells, perform drug testing studies in optimized protocols, and support the development of 3-D cultures for basic researchers.
The ODSR is headlined by a top-of-the-line imaging instrument (Cytation 7 Biospa) equipped with an upright microscope with a finder scope, an inverted fluorescence microscope with a wide field of view camera and up to 60x magnification, image stitching and z-projection capabilities, and automated incubator with 8-plate capacity, incubation to 45 C, and CO2 /O2 control and monitoring for hypoxia experiments
Personnel
Michael Verzi, PhD, leads the development of the ODSR. Dr. Verzi is a Professor with the Department of Genetics of the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the growth and maturation of the intestinal epithelium in normal health and disease, with a focus on colon cancer.
Geuntaek Lee, PhD, serves as the managing director. To enquire about services, please email Dr. Verzi at verzi@dls.rutgers.edu and Dr. Lee at leege@cinj.rutgers.edu