Facilities

The School has a superb range of specialised facilities available to staff, postgraduate and honours students.

X-Ray facilities

SAXS: The X-Ray Scattering facilities are comprised of a sealed tube X-Ray generator equipped with two Anton-Parr cameras, one each on the line and point sources. Each camera can be used in small-angle or wide-angle mode with image plates or a CCD detector.

3-Dimensional Visualisation: Images obtained by X-ray crystallography are studied in three dimensions using specialised hardware and software.

Mosquito Positive Displacement Robot: The Mosquito Positive Displacement Robot, which accurately pipettes small (sub microlitre) volumes, enables researchers to set up in 10 minutes what would have ordinarily taken one day to complete.

X-Ray Diffraction: The X-ray diffraction facilities are comprised of a rotating-anode generator with two Marreseach Desk-Top-Beamlines with Mar 345 imaging plates, Osmic optics and Oxford Cryosystems crystal cooling devices

Spectrometers

NMR Spectrometry: The School houses two (soon to be three) high-field Bruker NMR spectrometers, an AvanceIII-400 widebore, an AvanceIII-600 and an AvanceIII-800 under installation, as well as computing facilities for the processing and analysis of NMR data. More

Atomic Absorption Spectrometer: Used to measure trace elements.

APAF: The School has an excellent Proteomics Facility consisting of a gel lab, mass spectrometry lab and bioinformatics suite. In the gel lab there are facilities for running & blotting a wide variety of 1 & 2 dimensional gels as well as a laser based gel imaging system for scanning fluorescently stained or tagged gels such as Sypro Ruby or CyDyes.More

Circular Dichroism Spectropolarimetry: A Jasco 720 circular dichroism spectropolarimeter is used for investigating protein (and other macromolecular) conformation and conformational changes. The spectropolarimeter is equipped with a variable temperature unit for temperature control. Contact Dr Jacqui Matthews for further information.

Mass Spectrometer: The School houses a Thermoelectron LCQ electrospray mass spectrometer interfaced with a liquid chromatography system for MS and LC-MS analysis of proteins and peptides. More

Chromatography

Gas Chromatography: Fatty acids are separated and percentages in food and biological samples are determined on a Gas Chromatograph. Contact Mr Zia Ahmad for further details.

HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography): Sugars in biological and food samples are separated and quantitated by Dyonex HPLC. Contact Dr Bing Wang for further details.

HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography): Vitamins, sugars and amino acids in samples are determined by High Performance Chromatography. Contact Mr Zia Ahmad for further details.

HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography): High precision pumps, facilitate protein purification by allowing researchers to pass protein solutions over a variety of columns containing different chemical surfaces.

Biosafety

biosafety_cabinet
Biosafety cabinets: Biosafety Class II cabinets are for personal and environmental protection when dealing with microbes that are potentially capable of causing disease in humans. The UV light kills microbes and inactivates DNA.

PC2 Lab: PC2 (shown above) and PC3 laboratories are contained facilities for risk management and handling of pathogens and molecular manipulations.

Nutrition

Teaching & Research Kitchen: Glycemic Index studies are conducted in the teaching and research kitchen in the University of Sydney's Teachers College.

Teaching & Research Kitchen: Volunteers participate in trials held in the teaching and research kitchens.

Teaching Kitchen: GI studies conducted in our teaching kitchen.

Autoanalyser: Hitachi autoanalyser is used to determine the concentration of various metabolites in samples. Contact Mr Zia Ahmad for further information.

Bomb Calorimeter: Total energy in foods is determined by igniting samples under oxygen in a ballistic bomb.

General

Analytical Ultracentrifugation:The School is equipped with a Beckman XL-A analytical ultracentrifuge. This is used to probe both the association behaviour and the molecular shape of proteins and other biomolecules in solution. Both self-association and hetero-oligomeric association events can be studied. Experiments can be carried out on these machines by external users, either as collaborations or on a service basis. Contact either Dr Joel Mackay or Dr Jacqui Matthews for further information or enquiries. Note enquiries about the use of the Beckman Coulter Optima L-80 XP Preparative Ultracentrifuge or Airfuge (i.e. most ultracentrifugation needs such as nucleic acid purification/ cell fractionation) should be directed to Dr Dale Hancock. More

Fume cupboards: located in all our labs.

New labs: In 2006 many of our research labs were refurbished.

New work areas: In 2005 many of our workstations were refurbished.

Autoclaving: A bank of autoclaves are used to sterilise materials used in teaching and research.

Poster printer: High resolution colour posters can be printed and laminated for scientific conferences.