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facilities & equipment

1) Plant Growth Facilities

Walk in CERs: Two purpose-built controlled environment room (CER) for cultivation of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Each CER allows for growing of ~ 2000 Arabidopsis plants at a time. The CER has cool white fluorescent strip lighting (120- 150µmol/m2sec light intensity), temperature (16-25oC) & daylength control, ventilation/cooling system, and watering system adapted for the growing of large numbers of Arabidopsis thaliana plants on a six-weekly cycle.

Reach in CERs: The Genetics and Biotechnology lab also has 4 reach-in growth chambers (Snijder Scientific) for growing a wider range of plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana. A chamber for growing plants on plates.

Seed storage chamber: Weiss Gallenkamp Seed storage chamber supplied with an air drying system to remove humidity for storage of seeds at a level of 15%rh at 4°C.

Variable-temperature chambers: used for growing Physcomitrella patens and C-fern, and for performing heat- and cold-stress experiments.

Laminar flow hood: with a constant flow of HEPA filtered air over the work area protect the working environment from dust and other airborne contaminants.

Microtome and a dissecting scope: with live camera imagining and LED-illumination.

2) Microalgal Growth Facilities

The Genetics and Biotechnology lab has a purpose built microalgal growth room for culture of microalgae and diatoms at different scales and under different environmental conditions including marine pennate diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. The microalgal growth room contains a Laminar Flow cabinet for sterile culture of microlagae and a microalgae growth chamber (Snijder Scientific). It is equiped with a photosynthetic efficiency analyser OXYTHERM (Hansatech, UK) and access to core flow cytometer facilities.

3) Mammalian Cell Culture Facilities

Laminar air flow mammalian tissue culture cabinets: Laminar flow hoods with a constant flow of HEPA filtered air over the work area protect the working environment from dust and other airborne contaminants.

C02 incubator: Temperature and CO2 controlled incubator cabinets provide ideal environment for mammalian cell culture

Mammalian Tissue culture inverted microscope with Digital imager: Mammalian cells are often grown in petri dishes/tissue culture flasks and need to be viewed from the bottom of the dish. This requires the microscope to be inverted, with the microscope objectives pointing upward, and digital camera imager attached at the top provides a strong imaging tool for cell culture data capture in real time.

Mammalian Cells phenotype functional assays

a) Cell Proliferation assay

b) Cell Invasion assay

c) Cell Apoptosis , cytotoxicity and viability assays

Turner Biosystem Modulus 96 well plater reader: The 96 well plate Microplate Luminometer is a state-of-the-art microplate luminometer that meets the requirement for high sensitivity and broad dynamic range that is necessary for chemiluminescent and bioluminescent applications. They also armed with Single or Dual Auto Injectors, capable of performing both flash and glow-type luminescent assays.

4) Bacterial & Yeast Growth Facilities.

The Genetics and Biotechnology lab has a range of bacterial and yeast growth facilites/equipment such as replica plater, temperature controlled incubators (static and shaking) and designated laminar air flow cabinets.

5) Biological Storage Facilities

Seeds: Weiss Gallenkamp Seed storage chamber supplied with an air drying system to remove humidity for storage of seeds at a level of 15%rh at 4°C.

Mammalian cells: Statebourne Biorack N2 storage container.

Microalgal cells: Statebourne Biorack N2 storage container.

DNA & RNA Analysis

The Genetics and Biotechnology lab has excellent facilities for molecular biology of plants, mammalian cells, microalgae and microbes.

Affymetrix microarray facility: Dedicated facilities for carrying out microarray analysis using lab's Affymetrix genechip scanner 3000, Affymetrix fluidics station 450, Affymetrix hybridation oven 640.

PyroMark Q24 machine: for real-time, sequence-based detection and quantification of sequence variants and epigenetic methylation. The PyroMark Q24 can be used for the analysis of CpG methylation, SNPs, insertion/deletions, STRs, and variable gene copy number for real-time, sequence-based detection and quantification of sequence variants and epigenetic methylation.

Real-Time PCR Detection System: The CFX96 optical reaction module converts a C1000™ thermal cycler into a powerful and precise real-time PCR detection system. The CFX96 system's solid-state optical technology maximizes fluorescence detection for specific dyes in specific channels, providing sensitive detection for precise quantitation and target discrimination.

Gel imaging: for fluroscent applications using a Synegen G-Box, facilities for running and imaging tall gels and Western blots.

Partec Cyflow ploidy analyser: Used for high resolution DNA analysis ploidy analysis and genome size with DAPI by UV LED and PI by green laser excitation.

Fluoresent microscope: Olympus XC10, X-CITE series 120, for analysis of samples.

Bioinformatics

ICHEC Supercomputrer: The Irish Center for High End Computing (ICHEC) supercomputer based at NUI Galway, is used for whole-genome bioinformatics approaches with functional genomics to understand the origins, molecular evolution and functions of novel, duplicated and conserved genes, with a specific focus on genes which are of importance to stress tolerance, plant reproduction and seed development.

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This page was last updated Wednesday, November 09, 2011