Facilities

Blatt Image Center

The Blatt Image Center is located in LSC 359.  The center houses a state of the art Zeiss LSM 710 Confocal Microscope equipped with multiple laser lines including 405 nm (DAPI), 458/488/514 nm (Argon laser) and 543/633 nm (HeNe lasers) permitting scanning at a wide range of wavelengths. Software and filters permit time-lapse, multi-channel recording of reflection, fluorescence and transmission images. Objectives include 10X, 20X, 40X and 63X to permit imaging over a wide range of magnifications. The center also has a Zeiss LSM 5 Pascal confocal microscope.  Inquiries regarding use of the facility should be directed to Dr. Melissa Pepling (email: mepeplin@syr.edu or phone: 443-4541).

Electron Microscopy

The N.C. Brown Center for Ultrastructure Studies, located in Walters Hall on the SUNY-Environmental Sciences and Forestry campus, is a teaching, research, and service facility. It is equipped to provide students, faculty, and research staff with virtually every type of modern microscopy, including light microscopy, video microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Although this center is a SUNY facility, all resources are available for use by SU Biology faculty and students.

Among the major items of equipment in the Center are the following: a JEOL 2000EX 200-KV transmission electron microscope; two ETEC Autoscan scanning electron microscopes with energy dispersive x-ray analyzers, wavelength x-ray analyzer, LeMont Scientific Image Analysis System, and microstages for mechanical testing of specimens within the scanning microscope chamber; high vacuum evaporators, microtomes, ultramicrotomes, and an array of specialized light microscopes, including a high resolution enhanced contrast video microscopy system. Resources include specimen preparation rooms, photographic darkrooms, three electron microscope laboratories, and other supporting facilities.

Microarrays

The Department of Biology has a microarray facility that provides our faculty and students with the ability to design, print and analyze microarray assays that can be custom-fit to their needs. Specifically, we have an OmniGrid 100 (Gene Machine) for printing microarray slides and a 4100A Array Scanner (Axon) for scanning the slides. These facilities are located in LSC 453. Please contact Dr. Ramesh Raina in LSC 464 (315-443-4546) with specific questions about this facility. Microarray data are extracted using the GenePix Pro 5.1 software that comes with the scanner. For downstream data analysis, Acuity 4.0 software is available.

Facilities for the preparation of biological samples and their analysis by microarrays are also available in the SUNYMAC core facility on the adjacent SUNY Upstate Medical University campus. This full service microarray processing core provides researchers the ability to analyze samples using Affymetrix GeneChip© technology, as well as other microarray platforms. The facility also houses precision instrumentation for isolation of specific tissue or cell type samples (Leica Laser Microdissection Apparatus) and their quantification (Agilent Technologies Bioanalyzer). Bioinformatics software and analysis facilities are also available, including MicroArray Analysis Suite, MicroDb and Data Mining Tools for analysis of Affymetrix GeneChips, and GeneSpring by Silicon Genetics, and GeneTraffic by Iobion.

DNA Sequencing and SNP Analysis

The Biology Department has a CEQ8000 Genetic Analysis System from Beckman Coulter that performs DNA sequencing and SNP analysis. This facility is located in LSC 443. Contact Dr. Ramesh Raina in LSC 464 (443-4546) with specific questions.

Liquid Handling Robot

The Biology Department has a Biomek 2000 liquid handling system with integrated Spectramax Plus plate reader from Beckman Coulter. This system allows automation of several liquid handling applications such as plasmid isolations in 96-well plate format, normalization of nucleic acids in 96-well plates, preparation of PCR reactions in 96-well plates, liquid transfers from 96-well plates into 384-well plates, preparation of replica plates, transfer of nucleic acids from 96-well plates onto the nitrocellulose membranes, etc. Contact Dr. Ramesh Raina in LSC 464 (443-4546) with specific questions.

Restore Center Greenhouse and Growth-chamber Facilities

The SU Biology Department has separate greenhouse and growth-chamber facilities located in the new Life Sciences Complex. The state of the art greenhouse has ten independently controlled rooms including two rooms equipped for studying insects on plants, in addition to a potting shed and seed sorting facility.  The rooms are temperature and humidity controlled, and they have automated supplemental lighting and watering systems. Follow this link to view the current greenhouse conditions. The growth-chamber facility has eight controlled-environment chambers of various sizes, including four late-model Conviron E-15 chambers .Follow this link to download the SU Greenhouse Policies and Procedure Guide

Geographic Information Systems

The SU library has a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) lab that is available for use by all SU faculty and students. The facility features ESRI software (ARC VIEW and ARC GIS) as well as other compatible software for spatial analysis and imaging, digitizers, scanners, and large plotters. ESRI software is also available for use by Biology faculty and students on PC. For more information contact John Olson the Maps & GIS librarian (jaolson@syr.edu, 443-4818).

SU Library Resources

In addition to the GIS lab, the SU library has a number of resources offered exclusively to SU students and faculty.  Click here for more information about the available resources for life scientists.  For more information about SU library resources contact Elizabeth Wallace the Biology librarian (elwallac@syr.edu, 443-9770).

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Updated December, 2009

Syracuse University • Department of Biology • 114 Life Sciences Complex • Syracuse NY 13244
Phone 315-443-3186 • Fax 315-443-2012 • Email: Biology@syr.edu
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