Cell Preparation and Analysis Core ABSTRACT Members of the faculty of Yale University have a longstanding interest in non-malignant hematological research. This interest has further intensified in recent years, now encompassing multiple departments and a variety of disciplines. The Cell Preparation and Analysis Core (Core A) was initially established within the framework of Yale Cooperative Center of Excellence in Hematology (YCCEH) to address the needs and challenges of non-malignant hematology research laboratories both at Yale and in other institutions, by providing twelve services. Over the past four years, Core A has been successful in providing services and training, with an average of ~50 Yale and ~10 non-Yale users annually. Core A also has effectively trained and/or serviced 97 junior researchers, and contributed to the publication of 30 papers. With the success of Core A in the past funding cycle, we have also become increasingly aware of additional needs in non-malignant hematology research. We thus propose to continue the success of existing service offerings and to incorporate new services and training that answer to these additional demands from the hematology community. These 16 services and related training are designed to address challenges facing hematology laboratories, including (1) the relative lack of access to primary human cell populations and high commercial prices for the study of human hematopoiesis, (2) the wide spread interest in emerging cell preparation and analysis techniques which are difficult to establish and optimize, (3) the need to access primary patient samples, and (4) the necessity to train junior researchers to perfrom essential hematology research techniques with rigor and high reproducibility. Core A will continue to be directed by Dr. Diane Krause with the assistance of Associate Director Dr. Jun Lu. Additionally, Drs. Gary Kupfer and Manoj Pillai will be Key Core Faculty participating in Core A services. Drs. Krause, Lu, Kupfer and Pillai have extensive hematology research experience, which will be utilized to direct two research staff to provide effective services to YCCEH members and those in other NIDDK CCEH consortium. Junior investigators are particularly encouraged to use the Core services. Through centralization of key hematology techniques and establishment of a common platform for training, Core A will help individual laboratories to considerably increase research efficiency, reduce expense, and save valuable investigator time. The training aspect of the core will allow efficient dissemination of relevant techniques and prevent redundancy of such efforts in member laboratories at Yale and across the nation. By maintaining and providing exciting new emerging technologies, Core A fulfills the overall goal of YCCEH so that innovative technical advances are shared and positively leveraged for the advancement of non-malignant hematology research.