What's up with these fees?

As a researcher, it is natural to question the need for paying to use instruments in a core facility. What exactly do these fees encompass? It may seem unjustified that utilizing a confocal microscope comes with a considerable cost. Is a fee of $30 per hour excessive? Perhaps purchasing your own microscope is a more convenient option, without the need for ongoing payments (but is that truly the case?). Allow me to provide you with insights into the intricacies of a core facility and join me in unraveling the purpose and composition of these fees, shedding light on how they are determined.

Core facilities are bound by NIH policies enforced by HMS to ensure compliance and avoid penalties. I get it, it may sound like it's solely our concern, right? However, understanding the constraints that core facilities operate within is vital in comprehending the rationale behind these fees. Technically speaking, we function as 'non-profit businesses,' meaning that our operational costs and budget need to be covered through user fees and, with any luck, subsidies from the Departments or School (or percent effort in grants!) , without generating profit or incurring substantial deficits. It's certainly a challenging balancing act we navigate to ensure the facility is affordable for researchers and still recover our cost. This is a model I find precarious and would love to improve, to provide an accessible and affordable resource that all researchers can use to do rigorous and reproducible image-based science, especially having in mind those labs with limited funds. Unfortunately, the financial model is beyond our control.  The fees are reviewed and approved annually by the Office of Finance.

Now, you might be wondering, what exactly are the operational costs of our beloved MicRoN? Let’s talk numbers, my friend.

Our current budget sits around $900,000, and that covers a whole bunch of things described below and may change year to year. We're talking about salaries for your favorite microscopists (yeah, those lovely PhD-level experts who genuinely enjoy supporting and enhancing your research), service contracts, consumables, space costs, the depreciation of shiny new instruments and cost of repairs. Now, here's the thing: repair costs can be a real wild card, tough to predict and can throw a wrench into our budget, as downtime affects both cost recovery and most importantly, your research. A broken objective lens can cost between $5,000 to 30,000 (yes, you are reading that correctly! And please remember this when using the instruments). Replacing a laser for an instrument that is not under service contract can cost ~$10,000-25,000 (or $250,000 for a multiphoton laser!). Scientific cameras cost $14,000-50,000 depending on the technology… You get the deal.  Our staff's salaries make up more than half of the budget, and we consider ourselves lucky to have been able to trim some of the service contract costs (for now, at least). The depreciation costs? Well, they give us the ability to upgrade, fix, and bring in new equipment, but truth be told, in the last years, we have used those funds to cover any deficit (which, by the way, helped keep us afloat during the craziness of the COVID era, when we had virtually no income!). MicRoN is very fortunate to count with the support of the Departments of Genetics, Immunology and Microbiology to subsidize ~15% of the operational cost and help us purchase equipment and to have several principal investigators place their own instruments into the core so that the local community can benefit from them, they are not underutilized and most importantly, so that experts can maintain, and support research performed in these instruments (thank you immensely! Your generosity and open-mindness positively impacts research in the departments and creates an environment of collaboration. You inspire me!).

Now you may we wondering, can you please be more specific on the cost? Let’s get to it!

  • Service contracts range from ~$18,000-50,000 per year. On average you would have to pay ~$20,000-30,000 annually to maintain a service contract, and remember, costs are only increasing. Our multiphoton laser alone costs $23,000 annually to insure (but we were able to reduce somewhat the cost), which is in addition to the service contract of the instrument (~$30,000/yr). These are critical because modern microscopes are composed of electronics, optics, and motorized components that are not easy to fix ourselves. We evaluate whether we need to cover an instrument depending on whether we cannot fix them ourselves, what the cost of likely repairs is, and how heavily used an instrument is (e.g., more researchers need it to accomplish their research goals) to reduce downtime so that you can continue doing science. Remember, at MicRoN we have ~14 instruments! Not all instruments have a service contract, but you can imagine this amounts to a lot of money!
  • What about space, surely this is already covered? The cost of space at Harvard Medical School is ~$99/sq feet. MicRoN’s footprint, including microscopy rooms and office space (and somehow a corridor!) is 1800-1900 sq feet (this is around $180,000!). Grant overhead covers this cost for main quad faculty, but we must recover everything else.
  • But what’s the cost of our instruments? These vary widely but this is an average of the instruments we have. Unfortunately, in the last ~2 years the price has increased by almost 25% due to inflation and availability of materials. Please note, these prices reflect the cost of our instruments or similar (and in most cases I am using what they cost us WHEM we purchased them, not the replacement cost). Yes, you can find more affordable instruments but remember that in general there will be compromises like performance, support, capability/application supported.

Widefield instruments cost ~$150,000-250,000

TIRF add-on cost ~$150,000-200,000.

Spinning disk confocal instruments cost ~$500,000-650,000

Single point scanning confocal instrument cost ~$500,000-900,000 (damned inflation!)

Multiphoton instrument cost $ $1.5 million ($250,000 is the multiphoton laser!).

We do not have a lightsheet instrument (yet!), but they range from $350,000-650,000 depending on capabilities and flexibility.

What benefits do you get from working with MicRoN?

We consider ourselves a “Catalyst core”, emphasizing the partnership between researchers and microscopy core staff in driving scientific discoveries. The term "catalyst" conveys the idea of facilitating and accelerating progress, reflecting the active involvement of our staff in all stages of the research process: refining scientific questions, assisting with your experimental design (or designing it ourselves. We have your back!), sample preparation, image optimization, pushing the limits of what the microscopes can do, data analysis, interpretation and visualization and facilitating the adoption of new technologies. Do you envision a crazy experiment? We are thrilled to support you (we love the challenge!). And hey, that wild dream of yours may be closer to your reach than you think (we know our instruments and acquisition software very well and teach you our tricks). But most importantly, we strive to educate and empower each trainee that uses our facility to better understand what impacts their imaging, leading to enhanced rigor and reproducibility. This comes in the form of consultations, lectures and workshops, and resources we build (check out our publications aimed at improving rigor and reproducibility and best practices in microscopy!). We also help you through the publication process (figures, data interpretation and appropriate description of the technology and methods reporting). This means that while access to advanced instrumentation is critical for your research, having access to microscopy experts that understand that research (we are scientists too!), and are truly passionate, dedicated and delighted to support you through the entire “life cycle” of your scientific discovery is what makes the difference. We are your collaborators and cheerleaders, invested in your success and in improving image-based science. We invite you to take advantage of this resource by approaching us with your questions!

Putting this aside, MicRoN staff understands the instruments, maintains them to ensure they are optimized, perform quality control checks, provide resources for you to use the instruments even when we are not on site, and come to your aid when you have questions or issues before, during and after your training and imaging. We troubleshoot and fix microscopy issues and work closely with industry partners to address any issues to try to reduce downtime so that you can do your research. We listen to your needs and strive to meet them, ensuring we acquire equipment with new capabilities to enhance your research. All of these tasks demand a substantial amount of time and expertise, which is seldom available if your lab happens to own its own instrument.

Still not convinced? Let’s run some numbers

If you are thinking of purchasing a confocal ($500,000-900,000), and assuming 8 hours a day/7 days a week (2,912 working hours a year, which is seldom achieved for a single lab) you could use the instruments at MicRoN 20,000-36,000 hours! This amounts to 6.9-12.4 years!!! That's the full depreciation period of an instrument! And this does not include maintenance cost which would add 600 to >1200 hours more. 

I understand that in some cases (because of the application needed, which could be specialized or the amount of time ) having your own instrument makes more sense). Some grants allow equipment purchasing and it is tempting to disregard the benefits of working with a core facility are, but your time and that of your group is precious and working and collaborating with your favorite core ensures that the maintenance of the microscopes is taken care of and that your lab is supported and trained by passionate experts in microscopy. 

How can you support MicRoN?

Did you know that you can include percentage effort for MicRoN's staff to your grants if you anticipate you will want to collaborate with us? That would cover the cost of the instruments so that we can dedicate our time to your project!

Additionally, most grants allow you to allocate funds to cover user fees. Remember I can help you with your grant by providing a letter of support!

There are certain collaborative grants that would cover operating costs for a core facility assuming it is critical for the accomplishment of the research goals of several groups. I am always happy to help you write such grants!

If you have funds you would like to spend on an instrument, I encourage you to talk with me. Hopefully you would want to join the list of PIs who believe in sharing resources with the community and place the instrument in the core. You will get priority access. Additionally, we count with limited funds to co-purchase instruments with you. 

If you believe MicRoN is a key resource for your research but you find the fees are prohibiting, let's chat and see if together we can induce change within HMS to better support core facilities to reduce operational costs and fees. 

Lastly, I strongly believe in the importance of supporting image-based science and fostering inclusivity. I envision a fellowship program that provides free access to MicRoN core for underrepresented minorities and researchers from disadvantaged or underfunded institutions. If you have the funds, together we can break barriers, promote equality, and empower individuals who may not have had the same opportunities. Let's collaborate and make this fellowship a reality, driving positive change in the world of microscopy!

If you would like to learn more, please contact me at paula_monterollopis@hms.harvard.edu

Thank you!

Paula Montero Llopis, PhD

MicRoN Core Director