The BioCAT facility has a ~550 square foot wet laboratory with sinks, hoods, analytical and platform balances, water de-ionizer, chromatography refrigerator, -20 and -80°C freezers, micro-centrifuge, high-speed centrifuge, Nanodrop, platform rocker, an EON plate reader and an Bio-Rad NGC FPLC. It is possible to do a complete on-site purification of proteins from cell-pellets. We have several Zeiss stereomicroscopes and a Nikon inverted microscope with epi-flourescence capability. The BioCAT instrumentation lab is also ~550 square feet and contains electronic testing equipment, fabrication and testing areas and a large granite table for assembling optics. We have access to a well-equipped machine shop at IIT with one machinist. Argonne Central Shops (with a satellite shop on site at the APS) can handle larger jobs. The Advanced Photon Source has a well-equipped metrology shop which we use to characterize mirror and multilayer optics. For animal care we have access to the Animal Housing Facility in the Engineering Research Building at IIT.
Biochemistry Lab and Prep Area
The Biochemistry Lab is a well-equipped facility for sample preparation work. We have all of the equipment needed for the on-site purification of proteins. We ask that any special requirements be discussed with your Scientific Contact well in advance of the experiment to determine feasibility and time requirements. As a User, you have a safety obligation to label any tubes or containers that you use or generate with a descriptive, but brief, label of the contents of that vessel. Label should include:
- biological or chemical content
- concentration
- date
- initials
Our freezers and refrigerators are for short-term use only. Please dispose of/ship back to your home institution any tubes, solutions, or samples that you generate while at BioCAT. Those items left in our facility will be purged as part of ongoing maintenance.
If you are seeking use of our Wet-Lab and are not conducting a current experiment as a BioCAT User with scheduled beam time and a posted ESAF, you must get explicit permission from the Biochemistry Lab Manager, Mark Vukonich, before using the BioCAT Wet-Lab. Also, a “Wet-Lab Only” ESAF must be approved and posted by beamline staff. No equipment or materials in the BioCAT Wet-Lab may be removed, “borrowed,” or moved from the BioCAT Wet-Lab. Any unauthorized personnel who are spotted in our Wet-lab, without an approved ESAF, will be in violation of serious safety and security policies at the APS and we will present the matter to the Floor-Coordinators and the heads of Safety and Security at the APS.
BioCAT provides most of the basic materials and chemicals that one would require to prepare a sample for a routine setup. However, specialized chemicals, instrumentation, tools, and filtering apparatus not found on this page should be supplied by the User. If you wish to ship chemicals or equipment to BioCAT consult our shipping page.
It is expected that the user group will furnish their own consumables and will make arrangements for any hazardous waste generated while at BioCAT.
Available instrumentation:
- 4 C, -20 C, and -80 C short term storage
- Branson sonifier 450
- Beckman Coulter Avanti J-25 Centrifuge with JA-20.1 rotor
- Bio-Rad NGC Quest 10 Plus FPLC and fraction collector at 4 C (separate from SEC-SAXS)
- AKTA Pure FPLC, fraction collector, and Spark-Holland Alias autosampler at RT (separate from SEC-SAXS)
- Mini-PORTEAN Tetra vertical electrophoresis cell and PowerPac Basic power supply (Bio-Rad)
- Nanodrop OneC UV-Vis spectrometer (Thermo Scientific), microvolume and cuvette measurements
- Qubit 4 Fluorometer (Invitrogen)
- Eon Plate Reader/microspectrophotometer (BioTek)
- Sorvall ST 8R swing-bucket centrifuge (Thermo Scientific), 4 C to RT, 15 & 50 mL adaptors
- 5430R centrifuge (Eppendorf), 4 C to RT, 0.5-2 ml tubes
- PlateFuge microplate microcentrifuge (Benchmark Scientific)
- P2, P20, P200 and P1000 (Eppendorf) micropipettes
- Mini dry bath with cooling, RT -25 C to 100 C (Benchmark Scientific), with 0.5 ml, 1.5 ml, 2.0 ml, 15 ml, and 50 ml tube adapters
- pH meter and electrode
- Electronic balances
- Cordless pipettor
- Vacuum filtration and degassing
- Sonicator bath
- Water bath
- Vortex mixers
- Stir plates and stir bars
- Hot plates
- Rocking plates and tube rotator
- Glassware and plasticware
- Safety glasses, lab coats, and other safety equipment
The biochemistry lab also contains equipment for muscle dissection and preparation:
- Stemi 2000 and SV6 stereo microscopes
- Nikon Diaphot brightfield/phase/epifluorescence inverted microscope
Available consumables:
- 18 M-Ohm deionized water (Millipore Synergy UV-R water purification system)
- Ice
- Dry ice (via the APCF)
- Micropipette tips
- 0.5, 1.5, 2, 15 and 50 ml conical tubes
- Glass and plastic pipettes
- Centrifugal filter units
- Centrifugal concentrators (3, 10, 30, 50 and 100 kDa cutoffs; 2, 4, and 15 ml volumes)
- Syringe filters
- 0.1 and 0.2 μm vacuum filter membranes (used with reusable glass filtration apparatus)
- 0.1 and 0.2 μm vacuum filtration single use kits
- Plastic syringes and needles (assorted sizes)
- Most generally used buffers, including Tris, HEPES, PBS, TBS, MOPS, etc.
- Most generally used buffer components, including NaCl, KCl, EDTA, DTT, TCEP, Glycerol, etc.
- Ethanol
- Acetone
- IPA
- Assorted acids and bases (HCl, KCl, NaOH, etc.) for adjusting pH
- RNaseZapTM
- pH calibration standards for electrodes
- Gloves, absorbent pads, and other safety equipment
BioCAT also supports a small prep area just outside the experimental hutch with the following equipment:
- Nanodrop OneC UV-Vis spectrometer (Thermo Scientific), microvolume and cuvette measurements
- P2, P20, P200 and P1000 (Eppendorf) micropipettes
- 5415R Microfuge (Eppendorf), 4 C to RT, 0.5-2 ml tubes
- LSE Mini Microcentrifuge (Corning), 0.5-2 ml tubes
This prep area also has consumables such as centrifuge tubes, pipette tips, and gloves.
