University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI)

Overview

The Biobehavioral Medicine Facility (BMF) is dedicated to providing high quality laboratory services at a reasonable cost to investigators interested in assessment of biological changes associated with stress and other psychological and behavioral factors in health and disease. The BMF uses citable, validated, assay methodologies refined and standardized in the laboratory to provide rapid reliable results of high specificity and sensitivity with blood, saliva and urine samples. The BMF provides investigators with the opportunity to include both classic and cutting edge biological assessments in their programs of research, with quality assurance at a fair price.

Our goal is to foster high quality interdisciplinary research by providing data from a state-of-the-art wet lab capable of running both routine, standard assays as well as developing more innovative new biological assessments to support high quality biopsychosocial and mind-body research. The BMF has provided services to investigators in the behavioral sciences, medicine, nursing, psychology, public health, and social sciences conducting basic, clinical, and translational research across a broad front of health related issues, with a particular emphasis on cancer. BMF services are available to investigators at the UPCI, as well as to investigators at other nonprofit research organizations nationwide by arrangement with the Director.