The Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) is dedicated to advancing core and research biotechnology laboratories through research, communication, and education. ABRF members include over 2000 scientists representing 340 different core laboratories in 41 countries, including those in industry, government, academic and research institutions.

History

In 1986 a Research Resource Facility Satellite Meeting was held in conjunction with the Sixth International Conference on Methods in Protein Sequence Analysis. The next year protein sequencing and amino acid samples were sent to survey 103 core facilities. By 1989 the ABRF was formally organized and incorporated. Each year an annual meeting was held as a satellite meeting of the Protein Society until 1996 when separate meetings began.

ABRF Research Groups

Research Groups are established to fulfill two of the purposes of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities. First, to provide mechanisms for the self-evaluation and improvement of procedural and operational accuracy, precision and efficiency in resource facilities and research laboratories. Second, to contribute to the education of resource facility and research laboratory staff, users, administrators, and interested members of the scientific community. The results of ABRF Research Group studies have been published in scientific papers. Results from ABRF Research Group studies have seen reuse in other research. * ABRF Next Generation Sequencing Group (ABRF-NGS) * Antibody Technology Research Group (ARG) * Biomedical 'Omics Research Group (BORG) *

DNA Sequencing DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Th ...

Research Group (DSRG) *

Flow Cytometry Flow cytometry (FC) is a technique used to detect and measure physical and chemical characteristics of a population of cells or particles. In this process, a sample containing cells or particles is suspended in a fluid and injected into the flo ...

Research Group (FCRG) *

Genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

Research Group (GVRG) *

Glycoprotein Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known as glycos ...

Research Group (gPRG) *

Light Microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

Research Group (LMRG) *

Metabolomics Metabolomics is the scientific study of chemical processes involving metabolites, the small molecule substrates, intermediates, and products of cell metabolism. Specifically, metabolomics is the "systematic study of the unique chemical fingerprin ...

Research Group (MRG) *

Metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...

Research Group (MGRG) * Molecular Interactions Research Group (MIRG) *

Nucleic Acid Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...

s Research Group (NARG) * Protein Expression Research Group (PERG) *

Protein Sequencing Protein sequencing is the practical process of determining the amino acid sequence of all or part of a protein or peptide. This may serve to identify the protein or characterize its post-translational modifications. Typically, partial sequencing o ...

Research Group (PSRG) *

Proteomics Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

Research Group (PRG) * Proteome Informatics Research Group (iPRG) * Proteomics Standards Research Group (sPRG)

Resource Technologies

Members of ABRF are involved in a broad spectrum of biomolecular technologies that are implemented in core facility settings: * Automation: high throughput screening, LIMS,

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrat ...

. * Protein/Peptide Chemistry: amino acid analysis, N- and C-terminal sequencing, peptide synthesis, peptide/protein arrays. *

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

calorimetry In chemistry and thermodynamics, calorimetry () is the science or act of measuring changes in ''state variables'' of a body for the purpose of deriving the heat transfer associated with changes of its state due, for example, to chemical reacti ...

, CD,

fluorescence Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, the emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore a lower photon energy, tha ...

light scattering Scattering is a term used in physics to describe a wide range of physical processes where moving particles or radiation of some form, such as light or sound, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by localized non-uniformities (including ...

, SPR, ultracentrifugation. * Flow Cytometry Fluorescence Activating Cell Sorting * Protein Expression, Identification, and Profiling: differential fluorescence, conventional 2-D

gel electrophoresis Gel electrophoresis is a method for separation and analysis of biomacromolecules ( DNA, RNA, proteins, etc.) and their fragments, based on their size and charge. It is used in clinical chemistry to separate proteins by charge or size (IEF ...

, disease biomarker discovery. *

Gene Expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

and Profiling: gene arrays, real-time PCR. *

Mass Spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...

: qualitative, quantitative, and structural analysis of proteins,

carbohydrates In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or may ...

oligonucleotides Oligonucleotides are short DNA or RNA molecules, oligomers, that have a wide range of applications in genetic testing, research, and forensics. Commonly made in the laboratory by solid-phase chemical synthesis, these small bits of nucleic acids c ...

, and

lipids Lipids are a broad group of naturally-occurring molecules which includes fats, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, phospholipids, and others. The functions of lipids include ...

. *

Microscopy Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view objects and areas of objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye (objects that are not within the resolution range of the normal eye). There are three well-known branches of micr ...

light microscopy and imaging,

Confocal Microscopy Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser confocal scanning microscopy (LCSM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a sp ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

DNA sequencing DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Th ...

DNA synthesis DNA synthesis is the natural or artificial creation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules. DNA is a macromolecule made up of nucleotide units, which are linked by covalent bonds and hydrogen bonds, in a repeating structure. DNA synthesis occur ...

RNA synthesis Transcription is the process of copying a segment of DNA into RNA. The segments of DNA transcribed into RNA molecules that can encode proteins are said to produce messenger RNA (mRNA). Other segments of DNA are copied into RNA molecules called ...

genotyping Genotyping is the process of determining differences in the genetic make-up ( genotype) of an individual by examining the individual's DNA sequence using biological assays and comparing it to another individual's sequence or a reference sequence. ...

. * Separations: 1- and 2-D PAGE,

capillary electrophoresis Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a family of electrokinetic separation methods performed in submillimeter diameter capillaries and in micro- and nanofluidic channels. Very often, CE refers to capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), but other electr ...

chromatography In chemical analysis, chromatography is a laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture into its components. The mixture is dissolved in a fluid solvent (gas or liquid) called the ''mobile phase'', which carries it through a system (a ...

. *

Quality Control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach places ...

: GLP, GMP, quality and compliance. * Universal Proteomics Standard (UPS), a mixture of proteins used as reference standard in proteomics, introduced by the above-mentioned sPRG. This includes two sets: the original (UPS1, where all 48 proteins are at 48 pmol), and a dynamic range of concentrations (called UPS2), ranging from 500 amol to 50 pmol. * Other:

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or ma ...

analysis, differential display,

recombinant protein Recombinant DNA (rDNA) molecules are DNA molecules formed by laboratory methods of genetic recombination (such as molecular cloning) that bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be fou ...

production.

Annual Conference

Every year the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities annual conference is held during the spring in a varying North American city. This international conference is used to expose members to new and emerging biotechnology through lectures, roundtables, Research Group presentations, poster sessions, workshops and technical exhibits. * ABRF 2023, 7-10 May 2023,

Boston, MA Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

* ABRF 2022, 27–30 March 2022,

Palm Springs, CA Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land a ...

* ABRF 2021, 7–11 March 2021, virtual meeting due to

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

* ABRF 2020, 29 February - 3 March 2020, Palm Springs, CA * ABRF 2019, 23–26 March,

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

, Texas; 30 Years of Challenging the Limits of Science and Technology, Opening Doors for the Future * ABRF 2018, 22–25 April,

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Myrtle Beach is a resort city on the east coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is located in the center of a long and continuous stretch of beach known as "The Grand Strand" in the northeastern part of the state. Its y ...

; The Premier Conference for Core Services * ABRF 2017, 25–28 March,

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California; A Forum for Advancing Today's Core Technologies to Enable Tomorrow's Innovations * ABRF 2016, 20–23 February, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Innovative Technologies Accelerating Discovery * ABRF 2015, 28–31 March,

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, Missouri; Integrative Technologies for Advancing Scientific Cores * ABRF 2014, 23–25 March,

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

, New Mexico; Team Science and Big Data: Cores at the Frontier * ABRF 2013, 2–5 March, Palm Springs, California; Tools for the Advancement of Convergence Science * ABRF 2012, 17–20 March, Orlando, Florida; Learning From Biomolecules * ABRF 2011, 19–22 February, San Antonio, Texas; Technologies to Enable Personalized Medicine * ABRF 2010, 20–23 March, Sacramento, California; Translating Basic Research With Advances in Biomolecular Technology * ABRF 2009, 7–10 February, Memphis, Tennessee; Application and Optimization of Existing and Emerging Biotechnologies * ABRF 2008, 9–12 February, Salt Lake City, Utah; Enabling Technologies in the Life Sciences * ABRF 2007, 31 March- 3 April, Tampa, Florida; Creating the Biological Roadmap * ABRF 2006, 11–14 February, Long Beach, California; Integrating Science, Tools and Technologies with Systems Biology * ABRF 2005, 5–8 February, Savannah, Georgia; BioMolecular Technologies: Discovery to Hypothesis * ABRF 2004, 28 February- 2 March, Portland, Oregon; Integrating Technologies in Proteomics and Genomics * ABRF 2003, 10–13 February, Denver, Colorado; Translating Biology Using Proteomics and Functional Genomics * ABRF 2002, 9–12 March, Austin, Texas; Biomolecular Technologies: Tools for Discovery in Proteomics and Genomics * ABRF 2001, 24–27 February, San Diego, CA; The New Biology: Technology for resolving Macromolecular Communications * ABRF 2000, 19–22 February, Bellevue, Washington; From Singular to Global Analyses of Biological Systems * ABRF 1999, 19–22 March, Durham, North Carolina; Bioinformatics and Biomolecular Technologies: Linking Genomes, Proteomes and Biochemistry * ABRF 1998, 21–24 March, San Diego, California; From Genomes to Function - Technical Challenges of the Post-Genome Era * ABRF 1997, 9–12 February, Baltimore, Maryland; Techniques at the Genome-Proteome Interface * ABRF 1996, 30 March- 2 April, San Francisco, California; Biomolecular Techniques

ABRF Award

The ABRF Award is presented at the annual ABRF meeting for outstanding contributions to Biomolecular Technologies. Past Award Winners: *2022

Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz is a Senior Group Leader at Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus and a founding member of the Neuronal Cell Biology Program at Janelia. Previously, she was the Chief of the Section on Organelle ...

*2021 - *2020 George Church for his groundbreaking research in genomic sequencing and his leadership in the fields of gene therapy and synthetic biology technologies. *2019 Richard M. Caprioli for the discovery of temporal and spatial processing in biological systems using mass spectrometry. *2018

Amos Bairoch Amos Bairoch (born 22 November 1957) is a Swiss bioinformatician and Professor of Bioinformatics at the Department of Human Protein Sciences of the University of Geneva where he leads the CALIPHO group at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics ( ...

for the development of community resources such as UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot knowledgebase,

PROSITE PROSITE is a protein database. It consists of entries describing the protein families, domains and functional sites as well as amino acid patterns and profiles in them. These are manually curated by a team of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformati ...

, ENZYME, and

neXtProt neXtProt is an on-line knowledge platform on human proteins. It strives to be a comprehensive resource that provides a variety of types of information on human proteins, such as their function, subcellular location, expression, interactions and ...

. *2017 Sir Shankar Balasubramanian and

David Klenerman Sir David Klenerman (born 1959) is a British biophysical chemist and a professor of biophysical chemistry at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. He is best known for his contr ...

for the invention of a method of next-generation DNA sequencing which is commonly known today as "sequencing by synthesis". *2016

Emmanuelle Charpentier Emmanuelle Marie Charpentier (; born 11 December 1968) is a French professor and researcher in microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry. As of 2015, she has been a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin. In 2018, sh ...

and

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...

for the development of CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Technologies. *2015 John G. White and

William Bradshaw Amos William Bradshaw Amos (born 1945) One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is a British biologist, Emeritus Scientist at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biolo ...

for the development of high-resolution, laser scanning confocal microscope *2014

Patrick H. O'Farrell Patrick H. O'Farrell is a molecular biologist who made crucial contribution to the development of 2-dimensional protein electrophoresis and ''Drosophila'' genetics. He is now a professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisc ...

, for the development of 2-dimensional gel electrophoresis. *2013

Leonard Herzenberg Leonard Arthur "Len" Herzenberg (November 5, 1931 – October 27, 2013) was an immunologist, geneticist and professor at Stanford University. His contributions to the development of cell biology made it possible to sort viable cells by their spe ...

and Leonore Herzenberg for the development of Flow Activated Cell Sorting (FACS). *2012

Alan G. Marshall Alan G. Marshall is an American analytical chemist who has devoted his scientific career to developing a scientific technique known as Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometry, which he co-invented. He was born in Blu ...

for the development of Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR) Mass Spectrometry. *2011 Sir Alec John Jeffreys: Developed techniques for

DNA fingerprinting DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's DNA characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is called DNA barcoding. DNA profiling is a forensic tec ...

and DNA profiling *2010

Pat Brown Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown (April 21, 1905 – February 16, 1996) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 32nd governor of California from 1959 to 1967. His first elected office was as district attorney for San Francisco, and he w ...

: Pioneering work in the development of microarrays, and the diverse applications of this technology in genetic research. *2009 Mathias Uhlén *2008

Ruedi Aebersold Rudolf Aebersold (better known as Ruedi Aebersold born September 12, 1954 ) is a Swiss biologist, regarded as a pioneer in the fields of proteomics and systems biology. He has primarily researched techniques for measuring proteins in complex samp ...

*2007

Donald F. Hunt Donald F. Hunt is the University Professor of Chemistry and Pathology at the University of Virginia. He is known for his research in the field of mass spectrometry, he developed electron capture negative ion mass spectrometry. He has received mult ...

*2006

Roger Tsien Roger Yonchien Tsien (pronounced , "'' CHEN''"'';'' February 1, 1952 – August 24, 2016) was an American biochemist. He was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...

*2005

Stephen Fodor Stephen P. A. "Steve" Fodor (born in Seattle, Washington in 1953) is a scientist and businessman in the field of DNA microarray technology. He is the co-founder of Affymetrix, a company that produces DNA microarrays to screen gene expression and ...

*2004

Edwin Southern Sir Edwin Mellor Southern (born 7 June 1938) is an English Lasker Award-winning molecular biologist, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He is most widely known for the inventio ...

*2003

Franz Hillenkamp Franz Hillenkamp (March 18, 1936 – August 22, 2014) was a German scientist known for his development of the laser microprobe mass analyzer and, with Michael Karas, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). Early life and education Fr ...

and

Michael Karas Michael Karas (born 1952) is a German physical chemistry scientist and Professor, known for his researches on matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI), a technique in mass spectrometry. Michael Karas studied Chemistry at the University ...

*2002 John Fenn *2001 Csaba Horvath *2000

Leroy Hood Leroy "Lee" Edward Hood (born October 10, 1938) is an American biologist who has served on the faculties at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of Washington. Hood has developed ground-breaking scientific instrum ...

*1999 Marvin H. Caruthers for pioneering contributions to the chemical synthesis of DNA and RNA *1998

Bruce Merrifield Robert Bruce Merrifield (July 15, 1921 – May 14, 2006) was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left ...

*1997

Lloyd M. Smith Lloyd M. Smith (born October 3, 1954) is a professor of chemistry and the founder of Third Wave Technologies. Early life Smith spent his formative years in Berkeley, California, where his parents worked as professors of physics and mathematics ...

*1996

David Lipman David J. Lipman is an American biologist who from 1989 to 2017 was the director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Institutes of Health. NCBI is the home of GenBank, the U.S. node of the International Sequ ...

*1995

Klaus Biemann Klaus Biemann (November 2, 1926 – June 2, 2016) was an Austrian-American professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work centered on structural analysis in organic and biochemistry. He has been called the "father ...

*1994

Frederick Sanger Frederick Sanger (; 13 August 1918 – 19 November 2013) was an English biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice. He won the 1958 Chemistry Prize for determining the amino acid sequence of insulin and numerous other p ...

Journal of Biomolecular Techniques

The ABRF is the publisher of the Journal of Biomolecular Techniques. The journal is

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

and is published quarterly. The major focus of the journal is to publish scientific reviews and articles related to biomolecular resource facilities. The Research Group published reports include annual surveys. News and events, as well as an article watch focused on techniques used in typical core facility environments are also included. The current Editor-in-Chief is Ron Orlando,

University of Georgia , mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things." , establ ...

ABRF Executive Board

* Kevin Knudtson, ABRF President, Genomics Division, University of Iowa * Justine Kigenyi, Treasurer, KU Medical Center * Marie Adams, Van Andel Institute * Roxann Ashworth, Johns Hopkins University * Kym Delventhal, Stowers Institute for Medical Research * Sridar Chittur, SUNY Albany * Nick Ambulos, University of Maryland School of Medicine * Sue Weintraub, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio * Magnus Palmblad, Leiden University Medical Center * Ken Schoppmann, ABRF Executive Director

References

External links

Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities ABRFFederation of American Societies for Experimental Biology FASEBABRF Discussion ForumJournal of Biomolecular TechniquesABRF at LinkedInLeadership
{{authority control Scientific societies based in the United States Biotechnology organizations Professional associations based in the United States