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Cornell University

Facility policies for user-operated instruments

Training

  1. Each user must be trained by a staff member on the equipment he or she wishes to operate.
  2. Each user needs to have their own BRC account with current billing information. No sharing accounts.
  3. All laboratories using live animals for imaging must have an approved IACUC protocol prior to training on the required instrument.
  4. Contact BRC_Imaging@cornell.edu to set up training on an instrument.

Scheduling

  1. Schedule instrument usage through your BRC account.
  2. Peak hours are from 9 AM to 9 PM weekdays. Off-peak hours are from 9 PM to 9 AM weekdays and all day weekends, with current pricing posted here.
  3. If you are unable to attend your scheduled time, please cancel your appointment at least 24 hours in advance, so others will have the opportunity to use that time. Cancellations made less than 24 hours before session are billed at half the rate unless another user picks up the cancelled time.
  4. “No-shows” are billed at the full rate. Repeated no-shows and intentional disregard of warnings may result in suspension of user privileges.

Equipment usage

  1. No food or drink is allowed in the facility at any time.
  2. If you have any questions, please email BRC_Imaging@cornell.edu.
  3. For microscope users with BSL-2 samples, wear gloves when required to manipulate sample, but remove gloves prior to touching common equipment such as keyboards, computer mice, and microscope focus adjustment knobs.
  4. Please contact us immediately with any instrument glitches or malfunctions.  Do not leave unidentified problems for the next user.  We cannot fix what we do not know about.
  5. Clean up your workspace and any oil or water objectives you used when you are done.
  6. Do not leave specimens or samples in the Facility. There are bins for disposing of biohazardous and sharps waste in the facility.
  7. All posted safety procedures and waste disposal policies must be followed.

Hazardous materials and waste policy

  1. If your samples are potentially hazardous to people or the environment (such as plant pathogens or human cell lines), you are responsible for following all safety procedures necessary to contain your samples. Clean and disinfect the workspace when you are done.  Let us know about spills that are potentially hazardous to others or to the equipment, so that we can immediately deal with them.
  2. Do not put biohazard waste in normal garbage cans. Use the bins/containers provided for microscope slides, coverslips, pipette tips, culture dishes, and tubes.  
  3. If you use material that must be autoclaved prior to disposal, please take your garbage with you.

Data management

  1. not save images on the Desktop or C: drive of the computer.
  2. Any images saved on an acquisition computer may be deleted when space is needed, so make sure all your data is copied to the Imaging Shared Folder before you leave.
  3. Save your files in the Imaging Shared Folder (mapped to the Z: drive on all of our computers).  This data will be archived for three years.

Acknowledgements to the Facility

Please acknowledge the Cornell BRC Imaging Facility in publications and cite the numbers of shared instrumentation grants where applicable for data that was acquired in the facility: