Equipment & Training

CIMRR has purchased the following:

Tecan GENios plate reader, which has three measurement modes-absorption, fluorescence, and luminescence.

Tecan Columbus Platewasher, which is an automatic plate washer for strip-well, 96-well, and 384-well paltes, and which is compatible for ELISA and cell-based assay use.

 Coulter Electronic Cell Counter. This instrument performs highly accurate counts of cells and cell-sized particles for cell culture work.

Class II Biosafety Cabinet. This is located in the tissue culture laboratory and is used for sterile procedures and for processing human samples.

CO 2 Incubator. This is located in the cell culture laboratory for use with cultured mammalian cells only.

Electric Autoclave. This is located in the tissue culture laboratory and can sterilize small items up to the size of a 1 L flask.

Water Purification System. Reverse-osmosis/de-ionized water is available for routine uses. Ultra-pure water for tissue culture and DNA/RNA work is also available from our MilliQ Synthesis purification system.

Beckman Preparative Ultracentrifuge. This is available for procedures requiringhigh-speed, refrigerated centrifugation.

AlphaImager Gel documentation System. This instrument uses a CCD digital camera and computer to document electrophoresis gels stained with either colored probes or fluorescent probes. This instrument has software for the measurement of band intensity and for the production of publication-ready figures. In addition, this system will soon be upgraded to include the capability to measure chemiluminescence detection systems commonly used on immunoblots, and DNA/RNA blots.

SpeedVac Sample Concentrator. This is used for the rapid concentration or drying of DNA and RNA samples for further analysis. It may also be used for samples in small volumes of volatile solvents.

Eppendorf Microcentrifuge. A high speed centrifuge for use with small ( £ 2 ml) samples.

Electrophoresis Equipment for Protein and Nucleic Acid Separation. This equipment provides capability to run SDS-PAGE analysis of proteins and agarose gel analysis of nucleic acids. Up to 30 protein samples and up to 120 nucleic acid samples can be run at one time.

Electrophoretic Blotting Apparatus. This permits the transfer of up to 8 mini-gels at a time to blotting membranes for immunoblots.

Heating/Cooling Recirculating Waterbath. This is suitable for use in immunoblotting procedures and for other routine uses.

Orbital Shaking Platform. Useful for washing protein/DNA/RNA blots and gels and for mixing reagents in plates during ELISA assays.

Applied Biosystems Model 2700 Thermal Cycler. This thermal cycler is capable of running up to 96 polymerase chain reaction samples at a time and is compatible with 96-well plate formats.

Routine Laboratory Equipment and Supplies. Necessary minor equipment, pipettors, mixers, etc. are available. In addition, basic expendable laboratory supplies sufficient for training and trial runs are also on hand.

Revco Ultima II -80 ° C Freezer. This will be used for sample storage by CIMRR investigators.

Bio-Rad Protean Isoelectric Focusing System. The availability of this apparatus will give the CIMRR laboratories the capabilities to perform 2-D gel electrophoresis, necessary for proteomic analysis.

Refrigerated table-top centrifuge. This low-speed centrifuge has a swinging-bucket rotor for processing living cells. The rotor has sealed carrier buckets, providing containment for each sample. Therefore it is safe for processing human samples and other hazardous materials.

AirClean PCR Workstation. This is a small Class 100 laminar-flow hood for PCR set-up to prevent cross-contamination from plasmid DNA and PCR products.

 Applied Biosystems Prism 7000 Sequence Detection System. This is a complete system for quantitative, real-time PCR. It detects and quantitates specific nucleic acid sequences, permitting assays to determine, for example, the effects of experimental treatments on gene expression and to detect specific gene polymorphisms. This will make possible a wide variety of molecular assays.

Training:

 Dr. David Montgomery, Co-Director of the CIMRR Administrative Core, will provide training to Center members in the use of CIMRR laboratory equipment upon request. In addition, Dr. Montgomery will assist members developing new research projects in determining the feasibility of using the laboratory for these projects and to advise them on methods and procedures. Dr. Montgomery can be contacted by phone at the VA Medical Center, 792-1450, extension 6380, or by email at dmontgom@dakotacom.net.