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Laboratories and Instrumentation

The UM Biotechnology group shares approximately 5,000 ft2 of dedicated laboratory space in the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (EWRE) Building at the University of Michigan. The space includes a reactor laboratory for bench-scale bioreactor studies, including two large walk-in fume hoods to contain bioreactors that produce gases, and five mobile reactor carts. The combined lab space also includes a dedicated PCR/genomics lab, a microscopy lab, a large wet chemistry lab, and an instrument lab. A BSL2 microbiology lab houses all of the bacterial culture work and a new virology and cell culture lab was designed and added to the shared space in 2013.

The biotechnology labs are equipped with several fume hoods, two laminar flow hoods, two PCR hoods, a Zeiss Axioskop microscope with digital CCD imaging, a second Zeiss AxioObserver D1 fluorescent microscope with digital CCD imaging, two ultra-low temperature freezers with power failure backup, nucleic acid extraction and hybridization equipment including microarray hybridizations, thermal cyclers for PCR including a real time PCR setup, electrophoresis equipment including a DGGE setup, an FPLC for protein purification, a gel imaging system, a dual anaerobic glove box, a floor model high-speed refrigerated centrifuge, two microcentrifuges, various orbital shaker baths and shaker tables, incubators, a luminescence spectrophotometer, two nanodrop systems, and other equipment.

Group members have access to the Environmental and Water Resources (EWRE) Program’s major analytical laboratory with equipment that is shared and maintained among the Environmental Engineering faculty, including gas chromatographs equipped with electron capture, flame ionization, reduction gas detector, nitrogen/ phosphorous and thermoconductivity detectors, on-column or split/splitless injectors and autosamplers, and dedicated computer data stations for sample acquisition and manipulation, High Performance Liquid Chromatographs (HPLCs) with autosamplers, quaternary gradient pumps, and a combination of ultraviolet absorbance (UV), fluorescence (FLD), evaporative light scattering (ELSD), refractive index (RI) and conductivity detectors. UV/Vis spectrophotometers, several ion chromatographs, total organic carbon (TOC) analyzers, an Atomic Absorption analyzer, an ICP/MS with reaction cell for ppt detection, several temperature control rooms, balances, pH meters, COD digesters, drying ovens, a muffle furnace, and a steam autoclave. Furthermore, a high resolution LC-MS instrument is in the process of being acquired for trace organic contaminant and proteomic research. A virtual tour of the facilities is coming soon.