Scientific Platforms

The Broad's scientific platforms are teams of professional scientists with the expertise and organization to carry out major projects that could not be done within a single research laboratory. They work closely with the scientific programs and other collaborators to tackle critical questions in human biology and disease.

iconBiological Samples Platform
The increasing scale and complexity of genomic research requires access to equally large and complex sets of biological samples.
The Broad's Biological Samples Platform was founded to apply scientific expertise to the growing requirements of genomic science for rigorous sample acquisition, processing, curation, and storage.


iconChemical Biology Platform
Chemical diversity provides a powerful tool to probe biological systems, as well as to discover new diagnostics and therapies for human diseases.
The Broad's Chemical Biology Platform is an academic leader in creating and screening chemical libraries, including serving as a national resource under the NCI's Initiative for Chemical Genetics.


iconGenome Sequencing Platform
DNA sequence can reveal deep insights into biology, medicine and evolution. The ability to obtain large-scale genomic information is transforming biomedicine.
The Broad's Genome Sequencing Platform is a world leader in large-scale genome sequencing and analysis, serving as a flagship of the international Human Genome Project and related activities. It collaborates on a wide range of projects, including understanding the human genome by evolutionary comparison, decoding the genomes of pathogens, and discovering mutations in cancers.


iconGenetic Analysis Platform
Human genetic variation holds vast information about the molecular basis of disease as well as human evolutionary history. The recent ability to obtain large-scale information about genetic variation is transforming medical genetics.
The Broad's Genetic Analysis Platform is a world leader in large-scale genotyping and analysis, serving as a flagship of the international Haplotype Map Project and NIH's national genotyping center.


iconImaging Platform
Images of cells, when suitably stained, contain a vast amount of information about cellular state and are generated by the hundreds of thousands in experiments to determine the functions of genes and to identify useful chemicals for research and for therapeutics.
The Broad's Imaging Platform is a world leader in developing advanced methods to quantify and mine the rich information present in cellular images to yield biological discoveries. We develop open-source software tools and help biologists to apply them to significant questions in the life sciences.


iconProteomics Platform
The emerging discipline of proteomics seeks to study and understand the myriad functions and interactions of the proteins encoded by the genome, both in normal physiology and disease.
The Broad's Proteomics Platform combines expertise in protein chemistry, separations science and mass spectrometry to study protein activity, interaction and signaling at the protein level.


iconRNAi Platform
The recent discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) provides a powerful and general tool to inhibit any gene. This makes it possible to identify the genes that play crucial roles in normal physiology and disease.
The Broad's RNAi Platform is a world leader in the creation and use of RNAi libraries for biomedical research, including being the home of the public-private RNAi Consortium.