Graduate Program Facilities

The departments affiliated with the Graduate Program are extremely well equipped with facilities and instrumentation for biochemical research. Each faculty laboratory has an array of standard equipment such as refrigerated centrifuges, electrophoresis devices, spectrophotometers, pH meters, balances, etc., as well as special instruments appropriate to the research being conducted. In addition to the equipment in the individual labs and in college-wide facilities (e.g., NMR, optical spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and Research Computer Facilities, see below), the departments maintain shared facilities available for research including:






• Fermenters for growth of bacteria and bacteriophage
  
• Freezers for -70C storage
  
• Recombinant protein growth facility
  
• Video imaging system
  
• High performance liquid chromatography systems
  
• Large capacity autoclaves
  
• Laser dynamic light scattering particle analyzer
  
• Microprocessor-controlled spectrophotometers
  
• Preparative ultracentrifuges
  
• Scintillation counters
  
• Spectrofluorometers
  
• Stopped-flow spectrophotometer for pre-steady state kinetics
  
• Interactive color graphics systems for molecular modeling
  
• Protein microsequencer
  
• PCR reaction processors
  



The Department of Biochemistry has five walk-in cold rooms operated at 4C. These are equipped as laboratories and three have adjacent walk-in -20C freezers. A liquid nitrogen supply is maintained. A complete Vivarium, which includes separate rooms for raising rats, mice, rabbits and chickens, as well as specialized equipment for preparation of experimental diets and animal handling, is available. Facilities for mammalian and plant primary and established cell cultures are also available. For laboratories specializing in plant biochemistry, plant growth chambers are available within several departments. These chambers permit experimental growth and treatment of plants under completely controlled conditions.

Personal computers for thesis and dissertation preparation are available in all research labs and through the Computer Center at centralized computing facilities for students. Ethernet connects many of the departmental terminals or personal computers to the campus VAX cluster and to two supercomputers. Moreover, there are numerous personal computers, many equipped with laser printers and plotters, distributed throughout the department.