Research Facilities

The department is fully equipped for biochemical training and research. Individual laboratories have all of the basic and specialized equipment needed for their research projects. In addition, there is an abundance of departmental equipment available to all researchers. Some of the facilities and instruments within the department include: two cell culture rooms for the growth and maintenance of eukaryotic cells; a P3 facility; a fully equipped darkroom and an automatic x-ray film developer; several preparative and ultra-centrifuges; liquid scintillation and gamma counters; a video microscopy facility equipped for the processing and analysis of brightfield, phase contrast and fluorescent images; a real-time laser scanning confocal microscope with two fluorescence channels; transmission electron microscope; amino acid sequencer; DNA and peptide synthesizers; and many HPLCs. The department is especially well equipped for physical biochemistry and contains a stopped- flow spectrophotometer, a circular dichroism spectropolarimeter, a fluorescence lifetime fluorimeter, a Beckman Optima XL-A analytical ultracentrifuge, a differential scanning calorimeter, a titration calorimeter, a Silicon Graphics molecular modeling workstation, and a video enhanced differential interference contrast microscope. The departmental facilities are augmented by access to separate animal facilities, scanning electron microscope, and a fluorescence-activated cell sorter. Major biochemical journals are available in the library and reading room, and the Medical Center's Rowland Medical Library is nearby for additional reference materials.

We offer certain facilities to outside parties for either collaborative research or on a fee-for-service basis.

  UMMC Analytical Ultracentrifuge Facility.

  UMMC Electron Microscope Facility.