Tuesday November
24, 2015
Presenter: Dr.
Marimar Lopez
Department:
Director, CBIS Research Core Administration
Topic:Tour of
the Building
There are
several state-of-the-art Research Cores at the Center for Biotechnology and
Interdisciplinary Studies Building.
These resources are available to Rensselaer faculty, staff and students.
•
Nuclear
Magnetic Resonance (NMR)- Best technique for determining structure of organic compound. (For example, does the substance have a ring of carbons, or a straight chain? Does it have a carbon bonded to an oxygen bonded to a different carbon, or does it have a carbon double bonded to an oxygen?) Also, NMR can be used to determine if a substance is pure (hmmm...this substance isn't supposed to have any R-C-OH bonds, something else must be in here.) It is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a
magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation. It is used
for “solution structure determination” (determine structure of an
organic compound) of tiny molecules such as proteins, carbohydrates, and
macromolecular complexes at atomic resolution.
•
Isothermal
Titration Calorimeter- Used most often to study how small molecules (such as pharmaceuticals) bind to large molecules (such as proteins.) Allows simultaneous determination of binding parameters
such as the equilibrium constant, enthalpy of binding and stoichiometry of the
interaction
•
Chromatography- This is not your elementary school "smash up leaves and let them streak into colors" stuff. These are elaborate techniques to separate a mixture by a specific characteristic of its components. The entire mixture is passed through a medium that proportionally slows down molecules based on a certain parameter. Laboratory techniques for the separation of a mixture. If I ran a chemical experiment and wanted to quantify and identify every component in the resulting solution, I would use chromatography (likely HPLC - high pressure liquid chromatography).
•
X-Ray
Crystallography- Equipment used to identify the atomic and molecular structure
of a crystal. Crystalline atoms cause
x-rays to diffract into many specific directions. This would be used to determine the structure of atoms in a substance. Dr. Shi talked about this as well, when he talked about atoms functioning like slits for diffraction - visible light waves have a wavelength of about 5000 atoms, so we cannot tell one atom from another if we shine visible light on them. But xrays have much tinier wavelengths and seeing how atoms diffracts xray waves tells us how atoms are connected - at what angles, in what crystal pattern, etc.
•
Atomic
Force Microscopy- This can be used to slowly scan the surface of small material, down to resolution of tens of nanometer. It is very gentle and can be used to monitor real time transcription (copying DNA), and real time interaction between sub-cellular biological molecules such as microtubules and proteins. It can resolve structures on nanometer scale. It has a dry and wet mode scanning. A bioheater module facilitates live cell
imaging for cells where temperature control is essential.
•
Klett
Meter- Used to measure cell growth
•
Centrifuge-
It is an equipment with a rapidly rotating container that applies centrifugal
force to its contents. It is used to
separate fluids of different densities(or liquids from solids).
•
Mass
Spectrometer- Instrument which can measure the masses and relative
concentrations of atoms and molecules.
It uses the basic magnetic force on a moving charged particle. Basically you smash up something into its component ions, measure the abundance of those ions, and then back-calculate what that substance was . If you want to know "what is this?" the mass spec is your first instrument to try.
•
Microbiology
and Fermentation(Smelly Room)-
Facilitates bacterial growth, harvesting and processing on a small, medium. and
large scale
•
Sonicator-
Sound/ Ultrasound is used to disrupt cell membrane and release cellular
content. (Dr. Koratkar also used an ultrasonicator.)
Sources
http://biotech.rpi.edu/facilities/nuclear-magnetic-resonance-research-nmr
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