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
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, -80°C short-term storage
- Nanodrop One C UV-Vis spectrophotometer (microvolume and cuvette measurements)
- Nanodrop Lite UV-Vis spectrophotometer (microvolume only)
- Eppendorf P2, P20, P200, P1000 micropipettes
- Eppendorf 5415R Microfuge
- Eppendorf 5415C Microfuge
- Sorvall Swing-bucket Centrifuge (15 & 50 mL adaptors)
- Beckman J-25 Centrifuge with JA-20.1 rotor
- Isotemp 210 Water bath
- Isotemp 3006 Circulating bath
- Heating block
- Vacuum filtration and degassing setup
- Stir plates and hotplates
- Millipore Synergy UV-R water purification system
- Stemi 2000 and SV6 stereo microscopes
- Nikon Diaphot brightfield/phase/epifluorescence inverted microscope
- Bio-Rad NGC Quest 10 Plus FPLC, fraction collector and columns at 4 C (separate from SEC-SAXS)
- Branson sonifier 450
- Sonicator bath
- BioTek Eon Plate Reader/microspectrophotometer
- Denver instruments electronic balances
- Micro and standard pH electrodes
- Pipet-aid cordless pipettor
- Glassware
- Chemical fume hood
Available consumables:
- Micropipette tips
- 1.5, 5, 15, and 50 mL tubes
- Glass and plastic pipettes
- Filtered, deionized water
- Centrifugal filter units
- Ice
- Dry ice
- Most generally used buffers including Tris, HEPES, PBS, MOPS, etc.
- Most generally used buffer components, including NaCl, KCl, EDTA, DTT, GTA, TCEP, Glycerol, etc.
- Acetone
- Ethanol
