Time Line Prior to Start of Blog

2008:

April:

• ERC proposal submitted

 October:

• Reply from the ERC. The proposal is accepted!

 November:

• Resubmission of corrected Description of Work and budget
• Early discussions with Shy Arkin (then Head of Life Sciences) about opening an experimental lab in the institute
  

 December:

• Ayelet Rahat joins as a Research Associate
• Initial space allocation (Wing I, 6th floor)
• Meetings with Dean, and later HUJI President about lab renovations. Promise from president for budgetary support.

2009:

January:

• We formulate draft renovation "programa"
• First rounds of meeting with robotics people (Tekan and Perkin Elmer)

February:

• ERC project officially starts, budget number is open
  
• Fixing programa to include heat/electricity spec of different devices

March:

• Programa is sent to all relevant bodies

April:

• Initial cost estimate is given by building department
• Recruitment of internal grant from the ARD toward renovations
• Recruitment of the rest of cost estimate from HUJI president

May:

• First round of meetings with electricity, A/C, and water planners and with lab furniture manufacturer
• Modification of plans to meet requirements raised by the planners

June:

• Plan approval by Safety Department
• Planners move to detailed plans
• Ayelet works at Weizmann using Olympus microscope at the Schuldiner group (through to August)

July:

• Revised cost estimate according to detailed plans is much higher than initial estimate

August:

• Meeting to try to reduce cost of renovation
• Site visits to see Agilent, Tekan, and Perkin Elmer installations
• Visit to Perkin development site in Hamburg and Olympus site in Munich
• The option of using Operetta is raised

September:

• Operetta evaluation in Hamburg
• We are allocated a temporary space to start activity
• FACS system ordered

October:

• Discussion with Ran Nathan (Head of LS Institute) on renovating in new location, approval of tentative plan there
• Generating orders for lab equipment, consumables, and reagents
• Order for Singer RoToR
• Negotiations on Robotics + imaging options

November:

• Revised programa for the new site is formulated and distributed
• We decide to forgo Operetta and an order for Olympus ScanR goes out

December:

• Start of activity at the temporary location
• FACSCalibur installed
• New cost estimation for programa in the new site, close to actual budget
• Request for detailed planning for systems in the new site