RESEARCH SERVICES FOR FACULTY AND INDUSTRY

Outreach is a fundamental tenet of the BioTechnology Institute's mission as part of a land grant university. The BTI provides a nurturing environment where ideas can grow into new biotechnology businesses. The resources provided by the institute include highly qualified research scientists and state-of-the-art equipment. These are utilized by faculty and companies alike to scale-up ideas from the discovery stage to a level permitting assessment of technological feasibility and potential for commercialization. In addition, our students benefit from hands-on training in fermentation, separation, purification and molecular biology techniques.

The BTI has invested significantly in providing equipment that is properly instrumented to provide data to the researcher as well as adequate quantities of product to support subsequent research and development efforts. One result has been the collective resource known as Biodale.

Biodale's anchor tenant, the Biotechnology Resource Center (BRC) has a full-time staff of scientists, engineers, and technicians to support customer projects in fermentation, recombinant protein expression, protein purification, and molecular biology. The BRC's 13 bioreactors, ranging from 6 to 300L in size, are equipped with the latest analytical and control capabilities providing an ideal environment for process development and optimization. The fermentation capacity is matched by a corresponding range of downstream processing equipment, from centrifuges to chromatography. In addition, the BRC offers special growth capabilities for microalgae and phototrophic bacteria.

Located in the new Cargill Building, the High Throughput Biological Analysis facility (HTBA) provides robotic tools that meet the increasing need for high-throughput analysis. The primary tools are an automated colony picker and macro-array plotter and a robotic high-throughput screening system. Complemented by a database system running on a University supercomputer and a growing small molecule library, this facility is ideally suited for the discovery of biomarkers, drug leads, and metabolic pathways. The facility also helps non-traditional users, such as scientists from ecology to adopt these unique tools for their research needs.

The Imaging Center (IC) is a state-of-the-art facility for imaging of biological specimens utilizing light microscopy, electron microscopy, and digital image analysis related to research, documentation and presentation. Imaging Center users have access to image processing, analysis, deconvolution, 3D reconstruction and presentation softwares on IC computer workstations. Technical assistance and consulting is available.

The Mass Spectrometry Consortium and Proteome Analysis Core work hand-in-hand to provide support, training, and equipment for the separation, analysis and identification of proteins and peptides using a variety of proteomic and mass spectrometric technologies. A focus is the separation and analysis of complex protein mixtures, particularly with respect to distinguishing differential expression of proteins between two samples. In addition to proteins, the Mass Spectrometry Consortium also has the capabilities to analyze a wide range of other biological molecules.

DNA Sequencing and Analysis handles small and high-throughput DNA sequencing projects using 16 and 96 capillary electrophoretic analyzers. The throughput of the facility is further enhanced by automated plasmid preparation using a liquid handling robot. The facility also offers genotyping using GeneScan(r) and real-time, quantitative PCR and SNP detection using an ABI 7900HT analyzer.

12 Macintosh workstations are clustered to share processors and connected by high-speed networks to the Bioinformatics Research and Computing Facility (Minnesota Supercomputer Institute). The set-up is used to analyze and compare genetic sequences and to mine genomic data sets. This facility also hosts workshops and training in the field of bioinformatics.