To the Tetrahymena community,
We want to take this opportunity to update you on the Tetrahymena Stock Center at Cornell
University. Please take the time to glance through this note, and visit our website. We want your
feedback.
New website:
http://tetrahymena.vet.cornell.edu/
Please visit our site. We are interested in learning what you would like to see on this site. Send us
any ideas, suggestions for additions, links, protocols, etc.
A special thank you to Cindy Krieger, Nick Stover, Mike Cherry and others at Stanford University
for hosting our site while we got up and running. We are deeply grateful for all of your help and
your unending patience.
Available strains:
We have increased the number of strains listed on the website, including the addition of strains
deposited by other labs. This listing will grow rapidly as we complete the transfer of the strains
from some of the large collections this spring and summer. If you do not see what you want,
please contact us since the list of available strains is changing as deposits come in. We
unfortunately have had to increase the fees for both individual strains and shipping in order to
reflect our increased costs. Individual strains are now $30 academic / $60 commercial. The 7
strain mating type panel remains $150 / $300. Shipping varies by country and is now charged to
everyone. The shipping charge reflects our cost to ship via FedEx Standard Overnight within the
US, and via FedEx International Priority outside the US.
PLEASE NOTE that these fees are not meant to be an impediment to the use of Tetrahymena for
research or educational purposes, so academic researchers and educators without funding should
contact us . We will make every effort to insure that everyone who needs Tetrahymena has access
to our strains.
Ordering is simple!
To order strains, just download the semi-automated Stock Order Form using Adobe Acrobat
Reader version 7 or later, fill out the form according to the instructions located on the second
page, and fax or email it to the Stock Center. (It's best to download the PDF from this website
before each order so that you have access to the most current list of strains.)
When a Stock ID is selected from the pull-down menu, the Strain Name, Mic Genotype (Mac
Genotype & Phenotype), Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) Contact, and Strain and Shipping
Costs will be provided. Note that these semi-automatic features do require Adobe Acrobat Reader
version 7 or later. If you have any problems with the form or Adobe Reader please email the Stock
Center.
Deposition of strains:
We are in the process of transferring some of the large collections to our facility, but we are now
in a position to begin accepting smaller deposits form other labs. As we have started accepting
outside strains, we have worked through a number of issues. In an attempt to circumvent some of
those problems, and to make placement of strains in the Center as simple and painless as
possible, I am including basic information on strain deposition in this email. This information in
more detail is also available on the website. The most important thing to remember is that when
you are ready to deposit strains, contact us (http://tetrahymena.vet.cornell.edu/contact.html) so
we can work together to make the transition go smoothly.
All strains need to be accompanied by as much pertinent information as possible, in an easily
accessible form. To facilitate transfer of strain information, we have created a strain database in
Filemaker which interfaces directly with PDF or Excel files.
Labs with only a few strains (5 or less) to submit at any given time can fill out a semi-automated
pdf (http://tetrahymena.vet.cornell.edu/extras/TetrahymenaDonorForm.pdf) which is directly
importable to our database, simplifying information transfer and minimizing errors in data entry
at this end.
Labs with larger collections can provide necessary strain information as an Excel spreadsheet
which can be downloaded from the website (http://tetrahymena.vet.cornell.edu/submissions.html
).
To help in filling out the Excel and pdf files, we have also posted a table which lists and defines all
of the variables we would ideally like to see for all strain submissions
(http://tetrahymena.vet.cornell.edu/variables.html) . Obviously not everyone will have all of the
information for every strain, especially older strains, but we would like those submitting strains to
provide as much information as is available.
We have found that some labs with large, older collections have used an interesting variety of
methods for storing strain information. We are working with those labs to ease the transition to
either Excel or an alternate format that is compatible with our Filemaker database. If you have
information for a large number of strains stored in a format not exportable to Excel, please let us
know and we will work with you to see if we can find a simple solution. Ultimately some
information may have to be entered by hand into Excel, but we will do our best to make things as
easy as possible.
We encourage you to make use of the Stock Center.
We have supplied cells to nearly 50 different labs in 12 countries over the last few years, but we
want to do more. To maintain funding for the Tetrahymena Stock Center, we need your continued
interest and support. Please use the Stock Center whenever you need to obtain cells or want to
make your strains available to the community.
Best Regards,
Donna Cassidy-Hanley
Ted Clark
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