PNCC User Agreement

Requirements

Prior to a User arriving at the Pacific Northwest Center for CryoEM (PNCC), training requirements and badge access documentation must be completed, submitted and approved. These requirements include submission of a completed/signed:

  1. PNCC User Portal Acknowledgement
  2. PNCC Use and Access Agreement (UAA) [these usage disclaimer blocks: PNCC User Agreement, PNCC On-site Visitors, and PNCC Use Terms: Data Sharing & Publications signed in the PNCC User Portal by all PNCC users regardless of onsite visitation or remote use to comply with policy terms for our institution for every approved proposal].
  3. Unescorted Visitor Information Form (UVIF) (required for all non-OHSU users visiting on-site).
  4. Institutional Verification letter submitted (on letterhead) by their home institution verifying that a clear background check is on file (required for all non-OHSU users visiting on-site).
PNCC Proposals
  • All users of PNCC are required to follow standard policies for NIH data sharing, co-authorship, acknowledgement of PNCC support in research publications and presentations, and public access to publications. (See PNCC Use Terms: Data Sharing & Publications below). 
  • PNCC users will be assigned a Scientific Point of Contact (SPOC) to discuss any technical questions regarding their proposal.
Sample Requirements
  • For samples prepared with a BSL2 protocol, users must provide their IBC protocol and approval letter, and certification that users handling these samples have the appropriate institutional training. 
  • Samples will stay in the PNCC grid storage unit for 8 weeks and then be removed unless arrangements are made with a SPOC.

PNCC On-site Visitors

Requirements
  • PNCC users shall respect the privacy of all scientists and the work activities that are ongoing in the PNCC and surroundings.
  • PNCC Emergency Safety procedures will be reviewed with each visitor upon their first arrival to PNCC.
OHSU Visitor Badges

PNCC access badges will be held by visitors only during their scheduled time and forfeited back to the PNCC upon departure for the day (unless they are scheduled to be on site overnight and vetted for instrument use).

  • PNCC Visitors must report a misplaced or lost access badge immediately to both PNCC staff and to OHSU Public Safety 503 494-7744, for deactivation and replacement. A charge of $25 will be incurred for replacement of a badge.
Instrument Issues

Problems with PNCC instrumentation must be reported to a PNCC staff member as quickly as possible; this will help ensure immediate repairs. Do not attempt to repair the equipment on your own. Failure to report problems as soon as they are identified may result in the loss of user privileges. 

  • Instruments, and all parts, must be cared for as instructed during training. Abuse of any of the instruments/parts will result in potential loss of user privileges. Any broken parts/tools will be replaced by the user.
  • Problems after hours: Contact the PNCC Staff member via support@pncc.online and PNCC staff will respond at the soonest availability.

PNCC Use Terms: Data Sharing & Publications

Acknowledgements required for all research publications and presentations supported by use of PNCC
  • For all presentations and posters, a shortened acknowledgement is acceptable. Include the exact phrase “Use of Pacific Northwest Center for Cryo-EM supported by NIH grant U24GM129547” on any Acknowledgements/Funding paragraph or slide. 
  • For all research publications or press releases, the full acknowledgement is required. Include the exact phrase "A portion of this research was supported by NIH grant U24GM129547 and performed at the PNCC at OHSU and accessed through EMSL (grid.436923.9), a DOE Office of Science User Facility sponsored by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research" in the appropriate Acknowledgements/Funding section.
Co-Authorship of PNCC staff for publications involving data derived from use of PNCC
  • If PNCC staff only provided standard specimen and data services then co-authorship is not warranted. Instead, please recognize the expert assistance of center staff (credited by name) in the acknowledgements section of the publication.
  • If on behalf of a user, PNCC staff developed new methods that were required to attain the data used in a publication, then PNCC staff co-authorship is warranted.  
  • In cases where PNCC staff make significant intellectual contributions to a published study in the course of providing research guidance and/or cross-training, then co-authorship is expected.  
Data sharing and archival of raw and initial processed datasets
  • All imaging and other data generated by PNCC must be made public following established accepted practices for data validation and deposition to publicly accessible worldwide repositories (EMDB or PDB) prior to manuscript publication. Additionally, all raw and initial processed datasets acquired by PNCC will be archived using the MyEMSL archive. Users can access their project related archived data anytime and anywhere via the “Get Data” tab within the PNCC User Portal. Data is owned by the user during the awarded proposal period and for 1-year following the end of the respective user proposal. During this window only the proposal PI, their designated team and PNCC staff can access the data. However, 1-year after the end of each individual user proposal, all associated data for that specific proposal is made publicly searchable within MyEMSL and is available to the general scientific community. The archiving of PNCC data is automatic and does not remove the requirement to deposit data related to individual publications in worldwide repositories.  
Public access to publications for dissemination of information and tracking purposes by NIH and PNCC
  • NIH requires that all research papers describing research supported by the use of PNCC must be available to the public through PubMed Central. Additionally, NIH requires that PNCC have a copy of all resulting publications and information on all deposited structures/maps. All users of PNCC are therefore required to report all journal articles, conference proceedings, books or book chapters, contributed news articles, et cetera that include data generated by use of PNCC. Authors must upload these documents to the PNCC User Portal and link it to their awarded project within 2-weeks of publication.

PNCC Biohazard Information

Biohazard Determination
  • PNCC can only work with samples that are categorized biohazard safety level (BSL) 1 and 2. If the sample is, or is derived from, or contains any agent (or its DNA) that can be infectious or toxic in humans, animals or plants (viruses, bacteria, toxins etc.), or is obtained from sources that could potentially harbor (latently) such agents (eg. serum-derived or obtained from human cell lines), then the risk group (RG) must be established, licenses for shipping obtained, and safe operating procedures defined according to biohazard safety level.  Additional guidance on risk groups can be found in Section II of the CDC BMBL 5th Edition and references therein.  The starting point for our review will be the approval from the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) from the applicant's home institution and the protocols on which the approval is based, so please attach both to this proposal after the biosketches. If your final sample might be considered RG1 but preparative work involved steps at BSL2, then a copy of your home-institution IBC approval indicating a down-grading of BSL during the purification will be needed to support that designation. Generally, center staff will oversee approval of RG1 agents, while acceptance of RG2 agents from US institutions will require involvement of OHSU's biosafety officer / IBC which may impact project award timeframes.  Shipping of agents from outside the US often requires additional approval from the CDC and/or USDA, and will be considered on an individual basis. We cannot receive BSL2 samples in liquid form at this time. Only pre-frozen BSL2 samples with IBC documentation can be handled