The Western South Dakota DNA core facility, WestCore, has been established at Black Hills State University as a result of the partnership with the University of South Dakota School of Medicine’s INBRE program (NIH Grant Number 2 P20 RR016479 from the INBRE Program of the National Center for Research Resources). This is a continuation of a partnership started in September 2001 under the NIH-NCRR-BRIN.

The facility is fully staffed and is equipped with state of the art instrumentation such as two ABI 3130 Genetic Analyzers, two ABI 9800 Fast Thermal Cyclers and six ABI 9700 Thermal Cyclers. WestCore provides sequencing and genotyping services to researchers at the INBRE partner and outreach institutions free of charge. For researchers at non-participating institutions, government agencies (research and wildlife forensics), and private organizations (cattle and bison purity testing services) a fee is charged to cover the cost of processing the samples.
The faculty and staff of this facility work closely with researchers to ensure the data collected is the highest quality possible.