Welcome to the Duke Viral Vector Core
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- B19G EGFP rabies virus in rat cortical neurons
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- Luciferase lentivirus expression in mouse brain in vivo
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- EYFP lentivirus in mouse brain cortical section
The Duke Viral Vector Core (DVVC) provides services to investigators in custom design and construction, purification, and titering of various viral vector types for research use. Custom cloning includes assembly of viral vectors from simple one-step integration of genes into ready-to-go cassettes to multi-step cloning of complex constructs. DVVC has plasmids available that can produce short hairpin (sh) RNA for knocking down gene expression or bicistronic messages from IRES or P2A sequences. Viruses can be made so that protein expression (or knockdown) is constitutive or inducible. Constructs generated by the Core or provided by investigators serve as starting materials for generation of concentrated virus stocks. In addition, the Core has a number of ready-to-dispense aliquots of frequently used viral vectors (combining different reporters and effectors with a variety of promoters).
The DVVC facilitates the use of these powerful research tools by investigators across diverse fields of study such as systems neuroscience, stem cell biology, metabolism, ageing, cancer biology and others. Services are open to researchers within the Duke University Medical Center, Duke University, as well as outside investigators.