Ordering and Stock Center Policies
Shipping Information
Contact us via E-mail with details of the Sciara stocks and/or materials you wish to receive from the Sciara Stock Center. Include your full mailing address, telephone and E-mail information. Please make sure your ship-to address is where your mail is delivered, NOT where your lab is located.
Domestic orders and international orders will be shipped via FedEx. Please email us your FedEx account number when placing your order (all shipping costs are the responsibility of the recipients).
Terms of Use Disclaimer
The purpose of our Center is to provide cultures of Sciara to researchers, teachers and students. All stocks are purchased by you and shipped by us “as is”. To aid us in maintaining the integrity of the stock collection, please notify the Sciara Stock Center in writing of any problems you may discover with the stocks you receive. The Stock Center assumes no responsibility that the stocks will be fit for any particular purpose for which you may be buying them.
How to Cite the Sciara Stock Center
Should the work resulting from the Sciara stocks be published, please acknowledge the Sciara Stock Center at Brown University in your publication, stating: “Stocks and/or materials obtained from the Sciara Stock Center were used in this study.”
Acquisition Policy
The Sciara Stock Center houses all extant stocks of Sciara coprophila. With additional experimentation, as more stocks of this species become available (eg, various transgenic lines), the Scientific Advisory Board will consider whether they are broadly useful and should be added to the collection. Currently no species other than S. coprophila are maintained by the Sciara Stock Center, and addition of other Sciara species would have to be approved by the Scientific Advisory Board. For example, since Sciara coprophila is monogenic (mothers have only sons or only daughters), it may be desirable in the future to include a digenic species (a single mother with both sons and daughters) of Sciara to help elucidate the sex determination mechanism. Several other species of Sciara are currently maintained by other labs for their own research, and the Scientific Advisory Board will consider whether the Sciara Stock Center should maintain any of these other lab stocks.
No S. coprophila stocks have been intentionally discarded by the Sciara Stock Center since its inception at Brown University in 1976. However, some of the translocation stocks with translocation breakpoints within the rRNA gene repeats were unstable and were lost (T29, T32, T70). The perpetuation of the existing translocation stocks (T1 and T23) without further genomic rearrangements are monitored by analysis of polytene chromosome squash preparations. Sciara stock 91S with the petite wing mutation is not very hardy and was almost lost; it was rescued by outcrossing to stock 6980. After setting up crosses, additional adult flies are stored for up to two weeks in case they are needed for more crosses if few or no offspring emerge from the initial crosses. Moreover, duplicate stocks are maintained as mid-stage larvae in the cold room (4℃) for up to six months, requiring minimal care until they are brought back to room temperature to develop into adults for use in crosses.