Biological Services

Biological Services

Biological Services is a multi-disciplinary core research facility providing services and advice to research scientists and clinicians carrying out animal research.

Access: Applicants must complete a personal license or tissue only ethical review form, and attend an induction before they can register as a user of the BSU. Contact the facility for details.    
Training: Training is mandatory for all prospective licensees and Schedule 1 users, and is available in a modular form, consisting of theory and practical based learning. 
Location: The BSU has six separate facilities across King's 
Contact: bsucentral@kcl.ac.uk

Cellular Phenotyping Centre 'The Stem Cell Hotel'

A centre of expertise for cell characterisation using high throughput imaging and high content analysis of cellular models. The stem cell hotel provides guidance, expert advice and bespoke services to users, including assay development and assistance in overcoming technical challenges. It advises researchers in the best practice of sample preparation for imaging, imaging expertise, analysis pipeline design and quantification of the results. Introductory training is provided to all new users and bespoke training for complex cellular models is available. 

Access: To access the booking system, create an online account by completing the registration form.
Training: To qualify as an independent user, individual training can be arranged based on project requirements.
Location: 28th floor, Centre for Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine, Tower Wing, Guy’s Hospital, London SE19RT| Guy’s Campus
Contact: Email the facility at info-sch@kcl.ac.uk

Cancer Biobank and Histology Services

King's Health Partners Cancer Biobank can supply human samples and data for research projects. We undertake a variety of histology services, including sample handling, FFPE and freezing, microtomy, cryotomy, H&E staining, Immunohistochemistry and slide scanning. The facility has recently introduced a Hamamatsu S60 scanner with brightfield and fluorescence capability, offering either a complete scanning service or the option for users to scan their own slides. Please note the facility is unable to store scanned images.

Access: Contact the facility to discuss requirements.
Training: H&S and operational inductions are provided before using the equipment.
Location: Innovation Hub, Cancer Centre, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 9RT | Guy’s Campus
Contact: For general enquires contact Cancer Biobank, or for Slide Scanner enquires, contact Aasiyah Oozeer

Drug Control Centre

The Drug Control Centre (DCC) is accredited by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) as a testing laboratory across a range of sports, analysing both domestic and international athletes in accordance with WADA's prohibited list of substances.

Access: Contact the sample throughput officer to discuss requirements.
Location: Franklin Wilkins Building, Stamford St, London SE1 9NQ | Waterloo Campus
Contact: Sample Throughput Officer: Jayla Mehmet

CDN Fly Facility - Media Preparation

The Fly Facility offers fly media preparations of vials, bottles, trays and grape plates, for maintenance of lines and experiments with drosophila melanogaster as a model organism.

Access: Contact the Facility Manager.
Location: Room 1.23 Centre for Developmental Neurobiology -Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, New Hunt’s House, Great Maze Pond, London, SE1 1UL | Guy’s Campus
Contact: Facility Manager: Marisol Gonzalez-Melendez
Webpage: CDN Fly Facility

GEEC - Genome Editing and Embryology Core

The GEEC facility provides state-of-the art support for any projects involving genome editing and has a successful track record in the creation of transgenic animals. It also provides a general mouse embryology service for the cryopreservation and re-derivation of lines.

Access: Contact the facility to discuss project requirements.
Location: New Hunt’s House, Great Maze Pond, London, SE1 1UL | Guy’s Campus
Contact: geec@kcl.ac.uk

Genomics and Biomarkers Facility

The IoPPN Genomics & Biomarker is a core research facility at King's, offering a range of high-throughput genomics and biobanking services from sample preparation to bioinformatics support. The facility is a CSPro certified provider of Illumina's platforms and assays for genotyping and gene expression and provides epigenetic profiling using the 450K BeadChip and immunoassays via MSD assays for cytokines and chemokines, with state-of-the-art robotics and LIMS tracking of samples. We have also established Oxford Nanopore high-throughput next-generation long reads sequencing platform, PromethION to provide whole-genome sequencing, transcriptomics and methylome sequencing.

Access: Contact the facility.
Location: NIHR BioResource Centre Maudsley, SDGP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), 16 De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF | Denmark Hill Campus
Contact: Email kclgenomics@kcl.ac.uk for enquiries, and sample.processing@kcl.ac.uk for sample handling and biobanking.

High-Throughput Screening Facility

The HTS facility is equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation to perform high-throughput and high-content functional genomics screenings using a range of libraries. The platform can accommodate cell-based screenings using diverse cell models to address a wide range of biological questions.

Access: Contact the facility manager to discuss project requirements.
Location: The James Black Building, 125 Coldharbour Lane, London SE5 9NU | Denmark Hill Campus
Contact: Facility Manager Miguel Mano

London Neurodegenerative Diseases Brain Bank

Provision of human tissue for neuroscience research.

Access: Contact the facility for all tissue and training enquiries.
Training: Training offered in the use of human tissue for neuroscience techniques, neuroanatomy training and brain banking.
Location: SDGP Building, Memory Lane, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF | Denmark Hill Campus
Contact: brain.bank@kcl.ac.uk

Mitochondrial Bioenergetics Users Facility

This facility enables users to undertake parallel analysis of the two major energy pathways in the cells mitochondrial respiration and glycolysis, in real time, quantifying oxidative phosphorylation, fatty acid oxidation, extracellular acidification, glycolysis, substrate utilisation evaluation and other key bioenergetic measurements in live cells. The instruments available are:

• Seahorse XFe96 Pro Extracellular Flux Analyzer.
• The Biotek Cytation 5, a cell imaging multimode reader, used for data normalisation. Further details of this instrument can be found on Agilent.

  Visit Agilent for help with designing your experiments.

Access: Contact the Facility Manager to discuss access.
Training: Training is required for access to the facility and the equipment booking system. To book onto the next training sessions, email Aakruti Kaikini. Hands on training takes place over 2 days and is provided by an Agilent expert. This is followed by a data handling training session.
Location: Hodgkin Building, Great Maze Pond, London SE1 1UL | Guy’s Campus
Contact: Facility Manager: Dr Hannah Rosa

Preclinical Neuroimaging Facility: The BRAIN Centre

Biomarker Research and Imaging for Neuroscience (The BRAIN Centre) is a world leading facility for preclinical in vivo and ex vivo neuro-imaging of experimental animal models of neurological and psychiatric disorders. While the main focus is on magnetic resonance (MR) – structural & functional imaging and spectroscopy, the centre also provides assistance with small animal brain PET scanning as well as variety of post-mortem imaging and in vivo techniques such as microdialysis, electroencephalography, behavioural testing, histology and autoradiography.

Access: Contact the facility for enquiries and costings for grant applications.
Training: Full training is provide, or assistance with imaging experiments is also possible for untrained or inexperienced staff or students. Contact the facility for more information..
Location: The BRAIN Centre, Neuroimaging, James Black Centre, 125 Coldharbour Lane, London SE5 9NU | Denmark Hill Campus
Contact: Facility Manager: Dr Diana Cash or email the brain@kcl.ac.uk

The Infections & Inflammatory Diseases Biobank (IDB)

Centralised specimen archiving and molecular analysis facility that assists researchers wishing to undertake cohort-based projects in areas such HIV/AIDS, HCV infection or MRSA. The IDB collects and stores samples (mainly blood) from patients with infectious or inflammatory conditions attending routine hospital visits.

Access: Interested applicants should contact the facility to discuss the nature of their proposal. If feasible, applicants will then be asked to submit a full Biobank application form to undergo review by the Biobank Governance Committee. 
Location: Borough Wing, Guy’s Hospital, London SE1 9RT | Guy’s Campus
Contact: biobank@kcl.ac.uk

QPCR facility - Borough Wing

The facility is part of the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences (SIMS) and has two QPCRs available for researchers to book.

Access: Bookings can be made via Clustermarket for Internal and external researchers.
Training: Training is provided on an individual basis and facilitated by experienced SIMS colleagues.
Location: 3rd Floor Borough Wing, Great Maze Pond, London, London SE1 1UL | Guy’s Campus
Contact: Facility Manager, Stelios Papaioannou or Rui Pedro Ribeiro Galao