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Research in the Hubrecht Institute is supported by a state-of-the-art research infrastructure, enabling our scientists to achieve high goals. The facilities are supported with skilled lab technicians and are refined in-house to suit the researchers’ needs.
Imaging is an important research technique at the Hubrecht Institute. In order to facilitate the fast-growing demand on imaging tools, in 2009 the ‘Hubrecht Imaging Center (HIC)’ was founded.
Imaging at the HIC ranges from simple phase-contrast imaging of cells to high-resolution imaging of living tissue. Multiple advanced systems are available at the HIC, such as: confocal, two-photon, spinning disk and lightsheet microscopes. The HIC keeps up-to-date with the latest developments in microscopy and regularly new advanced systems are acquired.
At the Hubrecht Institute, we use imaging to follow intra- and extracellular processes in time. Using intravital microscopy, for instance, we are able to visualize the adaptive properties of cells in live animals. This technique allows us to capture images of biological processes. Also, by using advanced microscopy techniques, we can investigate processes like mitosis, and gain insight in chromosomal instability.
The HIC ensures high performance and optimal use of the advanced imaging equipment at the Hubrecht Institute by doing quality checks on the systems periodically, training of new researchers and providing support to advanced imaging experiments.
Single-Cell Core, a Hubrecht Institute facility, provides a wide range of novel, state-of-the-art single-cell sequencing services to detect (epi)genomic changes on a single-cell level.
Genetic alterations play a key role in the initiation of a range of diseases. For instance, in cancer there are tumor clones with distinct genetic alterations, such as single nucleotide variations (SNVs), copy number variations (CNVs) and indels. This heterogeneity is vital to tumor development, proliferation and metastatic potential, while also playing a key role in therapy resistance. Single-cell sequencing is used to investigate the (epi)genome of single cells and to unravel the concept of heterogeneity.
In recent years, many novel sequencing technologies have been developed in the research groups of Alexander van Oudenaarden and Geert Kops. To make these techniques widely available, Single-Cell Core was launched in 2020. Located at the Hubrecht Institute, we have had early access to technologies that no other labs have been running yet. This allowed us to develop a unique expertise on services involving chromatin profiling and karyotyping, giving us a head start in the field of single-cell DNA sequencing. Since then, Single-Cell Core has expanded its client portfolio from research institutes at the Utrecht Science Park, to medical centers in the Netherlands and to science organizations abroad.
Technologies that we currently offer include chromatin immunocleavage sequencing (ChIC-seq), transcriptome + chromatin immunocleavage sequencing (TChIC-seq), karyotype sequencing (Karyo-seq) and EdU-sequencing (EdU-seq).
The Flow Cytometry Core facility offers state of the art instrumentation for routine flow cytometry and cell sorting. The facility is continuously expanding with the newest software and machinery for both sort and analysis capabilities of up to 18 fluorescent parameters, and is committed to meet all of the flow cytometry needs for the Hubrecht Institute, the UMC Utrecht and the Princess Máxima Center.
The Flow Cytometry Core facility is available for:
Life science research increasingly involves large datasets and artificial intelligence. Analyzing large batches of sequencing data, quantitative analyses of microscopy images and determining or simulating protein structures requires substantial computing power and storage capacity. Therefore, the Shared Hubrecht Advanced Research Computing Cluster (SHARCC) was launched in 2025, providing state-of-the-art in-house computational resources for our research. Read more The cluster consists of: 30 NVIDIA Current Gen GPU’s 2300 Current Gen AMD CPU threads Highspeed shared NVMe storage Large scratch storage on each node Highspeed network SLURM Workload Manager Read less
The cluster consists of:
The Hubrecht Institute has its own animal facility that is home to nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans), fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), zebrafish (Danio rerio), frogs (Xenopus laevis) and rodent species such as mice, spiny mice and rats.
Where possible, we replace our animal experiments with in vitro models, such as organoids, reducing the number of laboratory animals. The scientific models that do not allow for full replacement are constantly refined and reduced to keep the number of animal experiments to a minimum. All of our experiments are subject to common Dutch regulation.
Additionally, The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), which the Hubrecht Institute is part of, has signed the Dutch Transparency Agreement on Animal Testing. More information about the Agreement can be found here.
In addition to the facilities the Hubrecht Institute has in its own building, Utrecht Life Sciences provides more than 50 shared facilities. These can be used by all researchers that work there. An overview of all available facilities on the Utrecht Science Park is offered on the website of Utrecht Life Sciences.
Histology is the study of microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. There are several techniques that can be used to obtain histological slides, each with their own advantages.
If you want to work at the histological department you need to receive instructions from Jeroen Korving. After instruction, you can get access to the facility and book the equipment you need via Agendo. For more information or if you have questions, you can contact the Histology department (room A1.63) via telephone: 2121898 or via e-mail: j.korving@hubrecht.eu.
Jeroen works for the whole Hubrecht Institute. He can help you with all histological techniques. Additionally, he can perform standard staining and sectioning for you. His expertise lies in processing very small specimens, including organoids and young embryos. He is skilled in dissecting organs from young embryos.
