This policy applies to instruments provided by the Turku Proteomics Facility at Turku Bioscience Centre. Independent usage is mainly intended for users with frequent usage needs and/or large-scale projects. Every user must read and follow the practices herein.

Publications and acknowledgements

1. It is obligatory to acknowledge the Turku Proteomics Facility AND Biocenter Finland in your publications. e.g. using for example the phrase “Mass spectrometry analysis was performed at the Turku Proteomics Facility, University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University. The facility is supported by Biocenter Finland.” Publication statistics are reported regularly, and help the Facility to secure funding for maintaining and developing the services.
2. Once published, please report your publication here.

General instrument usage rules

1. No eating or drinking is allowed at the instruments.
2. Users must keep workspaces/equipment clean.
3. Users may not disassemble or physically modify instruments. Contact Facility personel when a customized solution is needed.
4. Contact Facility staff to inform of any instrument malfunction or to request help with optimizing the configuration.
5. If the user wishes to recover  the sample vials from autosamplers, facility staff must be informed about it.

Instrument performance

1. The performance of instruments is validated to meet the previous general performance levels by analyzing Facility’s quality control samples.
2. In the long experiments, it is the responsibility of the independent users to monitor the performance of the instruments e.g., with repeated analysis of their own quality control samples.

Access, training & contact

1. Proteomics staff are usually available on weekdays between 9-15.
2. Contact us in our office BioCity 5^th floor, room 5104 or by email or phone:

proteomics (at) bioscience.fi or +358 (0)50 383 1782

Obligatory introductory training is required before independent instrument usage. Facility staff reserves the right to decide when user is adequately trained, or to completely revoke instrument access if the user policy is not followed

Reservations and cancellations

1. It is forbidden to use the instruments without a reservation.
2. Users are required to contact Facility before making a reservation.
3. Facility will allocate a time slot to which user can make reservation.
4. Reservations are made here: https://openiris.io, or https://utu.openiris.io (UTU accounts).
5. Users must make a reservation to OpenIRIS before the beginning of the instrument usage. Reservation must cover the whole intended instrument usage time. If needed, proteomics facility personnel can make corrections to reservation in OpenIRIS, e.g. in case of instrument malfunction or maintenance.
6. All washes, blanks and instrument pause time between samples are required to be included in reservation.
7. All washes and blanks before and after users sample set are not part of the reservation.
8. At the end of reservation 10 washes are required be submitted to instrument sample queue.
9. Mass spectrometer reservations are for a minimum of 1 h with 1 h increments.
10. The end of a reservation is considered by the Facility as the end of intended analysis time. The instrument can be then assigned to the next user in the instrument queue.

Billing

1. All instruments are charged per hour. Users are invoiced according to academic pricing here.
2. Charges are made according to reserved instrument time.
3. All washes and blanks before and after user sample set are not charged
4. In case of reservation misuse, users will be billed for additional hours.

Data storage and handling

1. It is the user’s responsibility to save their data and download it after using the instrument/data analysis computers.
2. Files older than 30 days are automatically erased from the operating computers and data analysis computers, without prior notice. These files cannot be retrieved. Please contact us to learn more about data storage options.
3. Users are encouraged to follow the data management guidelines of University of Turku that are described here.
4. It is not allowed to bring personal information containing data to the data analysis computers. Personal information must be either coded or pseudonymized if such data is analyzed.
5. Facility encourages the sharing of acquired data in public repositories such as PRIDE. Please contact us if you need guidance how to use these repositories.

Updated 11.5.2022