Biosensor Technology

The Chaiken lab in the Department of Biochemistry operates a biosensor facility, featuring a Biacore 3000 surface plasmon resonance instrument, used for detecting interactions between biological macromolecules.

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Capillary electrophoresis

Our Beckman Coulter P/ACE MDQ capillary electrophoresis system provides a versatile, efficient, and sensitive technique to the separation of biomolecules. The option exists to pipe the output from the CE system directly to our electrospray mass spectrometer.

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Computing

Drexel has long been a leader in the application of computing technology to research and education. Computational resources in the Department of Biochemistry include Linux, OSX, & SGI workstations equipped with software for macromolecular visualization, modeling, and structure determination.

Drexel also hosts the CYBORG project (in the Department of Physics), which provides access to massively parallel computing clusters.

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Fermentation

Facilities for large scale growth of bacterial and yeast cultures include eight temperature controlled floor shakers, a walk-in 37° chamber, and a 20 liter New Brunswick BioFlow IV fermenter (with a dedicated CEPA continuous flow centrifuge for harvesting cell pellets). An Avestin Emulsiflex C-5 is available for rapid and efficient breakage of cells for protein purification.

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Fluorescence microscopy

The Department is equipped with an Olympus AX70 fluorescent microscope, capable of simultaneously imaging four different fluorophores. Available color modules include FITC, DAPI, and blue and green GFP. The scope is attached to a digital SPOT RT camera connected to an Apple Macintosh G4 computer, which houses the latest version of “Open Labs” for quantitative image analysis.

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Miscellaneous

Also available in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology:

• Two Beckman liquid scintillation counters
• Perkin Elmer Jet liquid scintillation counter/luminometer >Numerous hi-speed and ultra-centrifuges
• HPLCs
• Storm image plate readers

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Spectroscopy

Available in the Department are:

• Two late-model circular dichroism instruments (Aviv Model 215 & Jasco Model 810), equipped with full temperature control and automated titration systems.
• A Spex Fluoromax-3 fluorimeter ( Horiba Jobin Yvon ), equipped with temperature control and microplate reader accessory.
• A KinetAsyst stopped-flow system from Hi-Tech Laboratories (in the lab of Dr. Marilyn Jorns).
• Multiple UV/Vis spectrophotometers

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Structural Biology Center

The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology has established a Center for Structural Biology under the direction of Dr. Patrick Loll. The underlying goal for projects in the center is to understand biologically important processes at the molecular level. The X-ray crystallographic equipment in the Center includes the following:

• Rigaku MicroMax 007 X-ray generator
• R-Axis IV++ area detector
• X-Stream 2000 cryogenic crystal cooler

In addition, a Douglas Instruments Oryx 6 crystallization robot is available for use in preparation of suitable crystalline samples for diffraction experiments.

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Synthetic chemistry

Instrumentation in the Department includes an Advanced ChemTech robotic solid-phase organic synthesizer, capable of running 40 parallel reactions, and a fully automated Applied Biosystems Model 433A peptide synthesizer.

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