About Costs Associated with Screening

High-throughput screening at the DRSC is cost-effective, both in comparison to the cost of doing a comparable screen in an individual lab, and in comparison the cost of genome-scale screening in mammalian cells.

Our facility provides:

• High-quality RNAi and other screening reagents made in-house and cost-subsidized by grant funding
• Expert advice on assay development, assay optimization, high-throughput screening, and data analysis (including image analysis) before, during and after a screen visit
• Access to on-line software tools for post-screening analysis

Cost of Screening at the DRSC

You should expect to cover these types of costs associated with on-site screening:

• Screener Fee: $3,000 (full genome) or $750 (1 sub-library). This fee partially off-sets the costs associated with the facility, including partial off-set of high costs associated with dsRNA production.
• Consumables and Assay Reagents: Approximately $3,000-12,000. We purchase consumables like plates, tips and some reagents at bulk discount prices. We track what consumables are used during screening and bill for those costs after completion of the screen. Additional reagents like media and antibodies are to be purchased by the screener and sent to the DRSC for their screen. These total cost of consumables and reagents are highly dependent on the type of assay you are performing.
• Staying in Boston: Variable. The cost of staying in Boston is highly dependent on your housing choice and on the length of your visit (genome-wide screening takes 8 to 10 weeks). Please visit our Staying in Boston page to learn about housing options.
• Validation Amplicons. Validation amplicons allow you to test an independent amplicon (different from the screening set amplicon) against a gene on the hit list as a validation step post-screening. Provided as DNA amplicons (dsRNA to be produced from these templates at your home lab). $4 per ampliclon (limit 250 amplicons).

If you have questions or concerns about the cost of screening, or if you are interested to get a letter of support for a grant, please contact the Director.