Facilities & Equipment

The department has multiple large teaching laboratories, with seating for 24 students in each. None of our courses have more than 24 students in a laboratory section. Our recently-remodeled animal facility complies with all USDA regulations. We have a greenhouse for course laboratories and research in botany and are currently working on enhancements to it. The department recently dedicated a room for microscopy and digital imaging of biological samples.

Equipment

The Department of Biological Sciences has the equipment necessary to carry out research in any of the areas available to students, from high-speed centrifuges and electrophoresis rigs to study biomolecules to oxygen sensors and remote data loggers for fieldwork. Some recent acquisitions include:

• Varian Cary 300 Ultraviolet-Visible Dual Beam Absorption Spectrometer
• Olympus BX41 Compound Microscope with digital imaging capacity
• Nikon Optiphot Epifluorescence Microscope system
• Leica sliding microtome
• Molecular modeling and statistical analysis software packages
• Miscellaneous research-grade equipment for the Neuroscience and Biochemistry programs, e.g. rotometers and electrophoresis equipment (including a 2-D gel system for proteomics)
• LiCOR Ecophysiology system
• Smith-Root LR-24 Electrofisher
• BioTek µQuant UV/Vis Microplate Spectrophotometer
• Biology MicroLog 1 Microbial Identification System
• YSI 556 Environmental Micrometer
• Bioquant Image Analysis system