Facilities

Major Instrumentation and Resources within Biochemistry and Wake Forest University School of Medicine

State of the art equipment As part of our current initiative in Structural Biology, a new X-ray facility has been developed to complement the high-field NMR capabilities in the department for macromolecular structure determinations. Professionally-staffed facilities for protein and DNA sequence analysis, peptide and oligonucleotide synthesis, GC- and tandem mass spectrometry and high- resolution NMR spectrometry are available within the department and institution. Core facilities for rapid reaction kinetics and spectroscopy, time-resolved fluorescence, circular dichroism spectroscopy, analytical imaging (including gel documentation, a Phosphorimager and aTyphoon Imager), dynamic light scattering, and analytical ultracentrifugation have also been established to meet the needs of investigators. Molecular graphics and modelling are provided through a network of UNIX-based computing facilities. A nationally- recognized facility for electron microscopy is also housed within the institution.

Listed below is the specific instrumentation available in each laboratory, including links to the relevant homepages, for:

Analytical Imaging Facility (homepage)

Molecular Dynamics Phosphorimager 445SI (radioactivity detection only)
MD Typhoon 8600 scanner (radioactive, fluorescent, or chemiluminescent labels)
Alpha Innotech IS-2000 imaging workstation for gel documentation and analysis
UMAX Astra 4000 flatbed scanner (1200 dpi) for 2-D color or grayscale imaging
35mm slidemaker for direct color image capture to film (e.g. from PowerPoint)
Two Dell pentium/windows NT workstations with image manipulation and analysis software and a
Macintosh iMac with image analysis software and zip drive
Becton-Dickinson FACStar Plus flow cytometer/cell sorter
Genomics Solutions FlexSys robotic array spotter

Analytical Ultracentrifugation Facility (homepage)

Optima XL-A analytical ultracentrifuge with UV/vis optics; An60-Ti analytical rotor; assemblies for 3 cells each with the following centerpieces: Epon/charcoal double sector, Aluminum double sector, Epon/charcoal six-channel, synthetic boundary and band-forming
Mettler DA310 Density/Specific Gravity Meter, accuracy to ± 0.00001 g/cm3
Schott America AVS 310 automated viscosity system from Viscosystems, Inc., with CT050/2 thermal bath, AVS/S measuring stand, CK100 chiller, Micro-Ubbeholde viscometers, for operation at 5 - 25 °C
Beckman DU7500 diode array spectrophotometer with water-jacketed 8-position cell holder for standard and semimicro cuvettes, and single cell holder and cells for measurements of 50 - 100 µl samples; external disk drive; software packages for protein and nucleic acid analyses and enzyme kinetics
Mulitple PC computers and printers for data analysis and manuscript preparation
Sialomed dialyzers and membranes

Advanced Spectroscopy Laboratory

Jasco J-720 spectropolarimeter (for circular dichroism spectroscopy) (homepage)
Brookhaven Instruments BI-200SM light scattering goniometer/photon counting detector and BI-2030AT digital correlator (homepage)
ISS K2 multifrequency phase and modulation spectrofluorometer (for time-resolved fluorescence) (homepage)

Biomolecular Computing and Graphics

16-node Linux cluster with 1 terabyte RAID 5 disk array and 18 gigabytes of RAM
6 Linux workstations, each with dual AMD Athlon 2400+ processors, 1 gigabyte of RAM, 22-inch monitors, and stereo graphics
SGI R12000 x 2 dual processor OCTANE workstation with 1 GB RAM, a 24-inch monitor, and stereo graphics
Crystallographic software packages including HKL, CCP4, CNS, and "O"

DNA Synthesis (homepage) and Sequencing (homepage) Core Laboratories

High Resolution Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Laboratory (homepage)

Macromolecular Purification

Mass Spectrometer Facility (homepage)

Waters Q-TOF tandem mass spectrometer (proteomics) interfaced to a CapLC. Equipped with an Advion Triversa Nanomate source for unique analysis of low concentration samples.
Thermo-Fisher TSQ Quantum triple quadrupole mass spectrometer interfaced to an HP1100 HPLC equipped with an autosampler.
Waters Quattro II triple quadrupole mass spectrometer interfaced to a Symbiosis chromatography station.
Thermoquest Trace MS interfaced to a Trace 2000 Series GC with autosampler

Molecular Genetics Research Program Computing Facility

Penguin Computing Linux server with dual 2.4GHz Xeon processors, 1 gigabyte of RAM, and RAID 5 disk array, with the Accelrys suite of programs

Protein Analysis Core Laboratory (homepage)

Rapid Reaction Kinetics and Spectroscopy (homepage)

SLM Aminco Bowman Series 2 luminescence spectrometer
Applied Photophysics DX.17MV-stopped-flow spectrofluorometer with diode array detector
Hewlett Packard HP8452 diode array spectrophotometer
Beckman DU7500 diode array spectrophotometer
KinTek Instruments quenched flow apparatus

X-ray Diffraction and Crystallization Laboratories (homepage)

X-ray Diffraction

Crystallization

Listing of Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University Shared Resources