Purchase of an Electrophysiology System

This system is being procured to accelerate research already underway and complements existing systems used by the research group and their partners. Any risks to the consistency of this research based on altering established workflows and by introducing system interfaces between differing manufacturers needs to be removed. Specifically, matching the parts on this electrophysiology rig with those on an existing microscope systems used by the researchers means experiments that require to combine information from both high-resolution microscopy and electrophysiology can be conducted in the same environment, using an identical set up and key components which is crucial for enabling accuracy and translatability between the two systems. In addition, the research group collaborates in their work and associated experiments with another research body who also use this system. Continuity is a key issue given switching between manufacturers would introduce too much variability in the data as such experiments are highly sensitive to even small changes in protocol and would require experimental protocols to be re-designed and optimised from scratch. Therefore, the procurement of this instrument has been awarded directly with Scientifica via an NCA.