Resources

Gel Permeation Chromatography	High-Performance Liquid Chromatography
Advanced Rheometry	Tissue Culture

Major Equipment

Gel Pernmeation Chromatography: A Waters 717 Plus Autosampler GPC system connected to a model 616 HPLC pump, model 600S controller, model 996 photodiode array detector, and model 410 refractive index detector for characterization of polymer molecular weight distribution.

High Performance Liquid Chromatography: second Waters 717 Plus Autosampler reverse phase HPLC system connected to a model 616 HPLC pump, model 600S controller, and model 996 photodiode array detector for purification and identification of peptides and proteins.

Advanced Rheometer: and a state of the art TA instruments AR2000 rheometer equipped with cone and parallel plate geometries for measurement of rheological properties, gelation and network formation of biomaterials are available in the PI’s laboratory.

Plate Reader: A Bio-Tek Synergy HT fluorescence/ luminescence/ absorbance plate reader with extended emission range for measurement of cell number and viability, quantification of the extracellular matrix composition of tissue engineered constructs, and measurement of the release kinetics of proteins from mircospheres is also available in the PI’s laboratory.

Polymer and Peptide Synthesis: A polymerization reaction system equipped with multiple heavy duty three-neck flasks, flexible stirrer shaft, motor, shaft, blade, and controller, flexible grip chuck and Teflon sleeves, vacuum manifold, adapter, and gauge, Instratherm oil bath with temperature probe and controller, and addition funnels is available in our own Biomaterials laboratory. A Captair Pyramid Model 1370 glove bag for peptide synthesis, two complete distillation systems, a Heidolph Laborota 4001 rotoevaporator, 1 mg Mettler Toledo AX204 balance, 10 mg Mettler Toledo PG5002-S balance, programmable model WS-400B spin coater, VWR scientific convection oven, Lab-Line Enveon incubator shaker, VWR Scientific model 1430D vacuum oven connected to Edwards 12 vacuum pump, VWR Scientific model 1305U conduction oven, three nitrogen tanks with multistage regulators, Kenmore refrigerator/freezer, dessicators, sieves, heating mantles, heating blocks, digital caliper, Calibrex bottle-top dispensers, high intensity UVP B-100AP/R UV lamp for curing, vortexers, mixers, heating/stirring plates, chemicals and supplies, and glassware are available in our Biomaterials laboratory.

Tissue Culture: A 6’ HERAsafe model KS18 tissue culture laminar hood, 2 HERAcell 150 tissue culture incubators with solid copper inner casing and 3-door gas screen, an Eppendorf 5810 table-top centrifuge, Eppendorf 5415D microcentrifuge, UNOVA 3000 waterbath shaker, Fisher Scientific ISOTEMP 220 waterbath, FREEZONE 4.5 Labconco freeze dryer system connected to a Labconco 117 vacuum pump, AN74i Anprolene gas sterilizer, New Brunswick U410 premium -80°C ultra low temperature freezer, Thermo Orion 290A pH meter, Cole-Parmer CP 130PB-1 ultrasonic processor with probe, Thermolyne heater/stirrer plate, Sharp Carousel microwave oven, Frigidaire refrigerator/freezer, Ohous 10mg balance, Eppendorf 10, 100, 200, and 1000 ml pipettors, glassware, and tissue culture chemicals and supplies are available in our tissue culture laboratory.

Computing: 4 PCs are available in the principal investigator’s laboratories for data collection, storage, analysis, and word processing. Graduate students and post doctoral researchers in the Department of Chemical Engineering have access to multiple PC and UNIX labs for computing. A 32 Central Processing Unit (CPU) cluster, an 8 CPU symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) SGI 64 bit Itanium machine and a 72 node Xeon Blade machine with fiber channel interconnect are available in the School of Engineering for data analysis, modeling, and simulation. The Chemical Engineering computing facility has a server with an Athlon XP-3200 CPU and 2.2 Terabyte hard-drive with dedicated space for PI and provides weekly backup of all research files.

Additional Resources Available on USC Campus

Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy and Thermal and Particle Size Analysis: The PI has access to a variety of specialized equipment within the Department of Chemical Engineering for structural characterization of biomaterials and tissue engineered scaffolds. These include a Rigaku D-max-B X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Micromeritics ASAP 2010 pore size distribution analyzer; Pulse ChemSorb 2700 surface area analyzer, Nicolet 740 FTIR Spectrometer with attenuated total reflectance (ATR) and diffuse reflectance (DRIFTS) sampling cells, confocal Raman microscope with computer-controlled depth profiling and X-Y mapping capability, atomic absorption analyzer, Perkin-Elmer DSC-7 differential scanning calorimeter, Perkin-Elmer TGA-7 thermogravimetric analyzer, Nicomp 370 and Accusizer 770A submicron and micron particle sizing systems.

Scaffold Fabrication and Mechanical Testing: The Center for manufacturing and Technology and the Reinforced Plastics Research Laboratory are located in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and house Material and Structure testing equipment including tension-compression testing machines, impact tester, creep and stress rupture tester, state-of-the-art finite element analysis tools for computational stress/strain analysis, and a machine shop for machining or modifying implant prototypes, internal fixation devices, testing apparatuses, and molds for specimen preparation. A state-of-the-art FDM 3000 Fused Deposition Modeler is also available in the Advanced Manufacturing Center for fabrication of tissue engineered scaffolds with well-defined geometry and pore architecture.
(http://www.me.sc.edu/Research/cmmnde/)
(http://www.me.sc.edu/Research/cmmnde/plastics/plasticsframes.htm)

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Mass Spectrometry: NMR facilities include 300, 400 MHz Varian Mercury, 400 Bruker Avance/DRX, and 500 Varian Inova fully multinuclear NMR with capabilities for solid state analysis. MS facilities include Finnigan 4500 with electron impact ionization, Finnigan TSQ with electron capture negative ionization, VG 70S with electrospray ionization and fast atom bombardment source, Micromass QTOF with atmospheric pressure chemical ionization, and Bruker time-of-flight Ultraflex Maldi.
(http://www.chem.sc.edu/graduate/facilities_magnetic.asp)
(http://www.chem.sc.edu/graduate/facilities_mass.asp)

Electron Microscopy: ES facilities include Philips ESEM equipped with hot and cold stages, FEI Quanta ESEM equipped with EDAX, JOEL 100CX TEM, atomic resolution STEM with x-ray microanalysis system, Delta Integrated SEM, and Bio-Rad MRC 1024 multi-photon confocal microscope. A Bruker Smart Apex Single Crystal x-ray diffractometer is available for determination of crystal structure and percent crystallinity of polymers. (http://www.emc.sc.edu/)

Materials Surface Characterization: Facilities include High-Resolution FTIR, laser Raman imaging, circular dichroism, Ellipsometers, spectroscopic Ellipsometer, Omicron UHV Scanning tunneling microscope (STM), and single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy. (http://www.chem.sc.edu/graduate/facilities_materials.asp)

Instrumentation Resources Facilities: They are located in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Anatomy (CDBA) of the School of Medicine which include Integrated Microspcopic Analysis (IMA), Core Tissue Culture, Histology, Darkroom, and Microinjection facilities. Major equipment in IMA include a Zeiss LSM 510 META confocal microscope, Biorad MRC1024 confocal scanning laser microscope, Zeiss Axiovert 135 ATTOFLOUR/CARV live cell imaging system, JEOL 6300V SEM, JEOL 200CX TEM, Beckman Coulter EPICS XL flow cytometer, Biorad FX phosphorimager, Nikon OPTIPHOT system, Ziess Microm 505HN cryostat, and Citadel 1000 tissue processor, Bio-Rad iCycler real time PCR, and PACE/MDQ capillary electrophoresis. Core Tissue Culture facility is equipped with multiple laminar flow hoods and tissue culture incubators, water purification system, AMSCO tissue culture sterilizer, shaker water baths for cell isolation, spinner culture bioreactors, rotators for suspension cultures, and incubators for whole mammalian embryo culture. A dedicated Zeiss Axiovert 35 equipped with modulation optics, Zeiss micromanipulators, Eppendorf 5242 microinjector, a Sutter P-87 programmable pipette puller, and a Narishige EG-4 pipet microgrinder is available in the Microinjection Facility. (http://dba.med.sc.edu/price/irf/irf.htm)

Animal Resources: Animals used for cell isolation and in vivo implantation are housed in the AAALAC approved Animal Care Facility operated by the University of South Carolina. The animal facility has a full time veterinarian. There are multiple 200 ft2 spaces allocated for cell isolation or operation on small and large animals. (http://uscm.med.sc.edu/ARF/index.htm)

Statistics: Our laboratory has the capability to perform many of the statistical procedures required for the analysis of data through the use of JMP, Statview or Systat statistical programs. In addition, within the USC campus, the PI has immediate access to the Statistics Laboratory in the College of Nursing to use mainframe or PC based SAS (Statistical Analysis System) and DBMS (Data Based Management System) programs. The Statistics Laboratory can also provide consultation on sampling techniques, multivariate analysis of the experimental data, experimental design, and developing linear and nonlinear models for data representation. (http://www.sc.edu/nursing/stat/statindex.html)