Research FacilitiesThe Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of Molecular & Cellular Biology have outstanding facilities that allow students to pursue a wide range of research problems in biochemistry, molecular biology or molecular biophysics. Most of the faculty are located in one of two modern biological sciences buildings on the main campus, which provide an excellent physical environment for research. Several faculty members have laboratories in the Arizona Health Sciences Center complex, which includes the Arizona Cancer Center. The Arizona Cancer Center houses faculty members with specific interests
in cancer research. Established programs are in place to study the molecular
and cellular biology of cancer and the biochemistry and pharmacology of
anti-cancer agents. The Center is generously funded from state and federal
sources and is well equipped to carry out basic research in these areas.
Much of the instrumentation in the departments was purchased from research grants. With research grants totalling more than 7.9 million dollars during the present fiscal year, it is expected that this level of funding will increase. Support such as this, together with additional funds from the State of Arizona, has enabled the departments to maintain state-of-the-art instrumentation for all aspects of modern molecular biology and biochemistry. There is an ample supply of general molecular and cellular biology
and biochemistry research equipment such as centrifuges, cold rooms,
incubators, growth chambers and chromatograhpy equipment. The program is well equipped for studies in molecular biophysics; equipment for laser flash photoysis, stopped flow kinetics, UV, visible and infrared spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy is available. For structural studies, there are also two low temperature electron microscopes, an X-ray diffraction laboratory, and a UNIX-based SGI molecular graphics system. To support computational biology, the Biotechnology Computing Facility maintains a variety of computing systems and software. Nucleotide sequence analysis using the GCG program suite is available on a locally-maintained UNIX computer. We also maintain a direct link to a remote supercomputer offering sequence alignment with other programs such as BLAST. Network connectivity over ethernet wiring allows PC and Macintosh users to access the departmental computers, the University and remote supercomputers, and the internet. In addition, we offer technical support in configuring and connecting Macintosh and MS-Windows-based machines to our networked systems.
[Home | Prospective Students | Current Students | Faculty
Research |
Please e-mail any comments to: |
Confocal microscopy, transgenic animal facilities, phosphorimagers,
and image processing equipment are also available. All instrumentation
is readily accessible for student use. In addition, there is available
DNA sequencing specialized instrumentation, including facilities for
automated protein sequencing, amino acid analysis, and peptide synthesis.
