Shared Research Facilities and Equipment

The UNC HTPSA Facility (part of the UNC Center for Structural Biology) provides researchers with high quality services for peptide synthesis, purification, and characterization of synthetic peptides. We specialize in synthesis of multiply modified peptides containing PTMs, unnatural amino acids, and fluorescent tags and peptide hydrazides for Native Chemical Ligation reactions.

The mission of the Histology Research Core Facility is to provide high-quality, cost-effective and timely histological results to researchers in the UNC system and abroad. This includes performance of existing, and development of new methodology for histological processing, sectioning and staining of both plant and animal specimens and all immunohistochemistry procedures. Other services provided: nissl, x-gal, beta gal, sectioning, staining, counterstain, prussian blue, cresyl violet, sudan iv

The Hooker Imaging Core (HIC) is an open core providing standard and advanced light microscopy, electron microscopy, and image processing resources, including live cell/tissue, confocal and super resolution. Assistance is provided to enable users to acquire images from samples they have prepared and provides electron microscopy sample preparation services. The HIC’s flagship confocal systems are a Leica STELLARIS 8 FALCON STED with White Light Laser for broad spectral range, fluorescence lifetime imaging and STED super-resolution, a Zeiss LSM 880 with Airyscan FAST for extra resolution, sensitivity and speed and an upright Zeiss 800 confocal. Additionaly, the HIC has systems for long-term live cell imaging (VivaView), high content image screening (GE IN Cell Analyzer 2200), automated slide scanning (Evident Scientific VS-200), and wide field systems for color and fluorescence imaging. Training and other assistance will be provided by the core staff. The Faculty Advisor is Dr. Stephanie Gupton.

This state-of-the-art laboratory is designed to perturb, measure, and analyze human movement, primarily gait. The centerpieces of the lab are a 3D motion capture system, and dual-belt instrumented treadmill.

State-of-the-art suite of charged particle, scanning probe and optical microscopes, including Helium Ion Microscope, Crossbeam SEM/FIB with EDX, TEM, VP-SEM (Environmental) with EDX, FE-SEM, Atomic Force Microscope, Confocal and Hyperspectral/Dark-field Microscopes.

Suite of spectroscopic and chromatographic characterization instruments including X-ray Photoelectron Spectrometer (XPS), 400 and 700 MHz NMR, GC Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer, GC/LC Triple Quad Mass Spectrometer, LC/MS Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer, HPLC Liquid Chromatography System, X-Ray Diffractometer, Confocal Raman Confocal Microscope, UV-Vis Spectrophotometer, FTIR Spectrometer w/ATR, ICP-OES Axial Spectrometer, ICP Mass Spectrometer, Fluorescence Spectrophotometer, Zetasizer and Nanoparticle Tracking and Goniometer/Tensiometer.

The computational Modeling Core includes Cray XC-30 Supercomputer System (nano.ncat.edu) with CPU compute blades memory totaling 640 cores and GPU compute blades memory totaling 240 cores, HP 24-core Linux workstations, HP 32-core workstation, Visualization lab with 3D stereo-vision display system and the Mechdyne visualization suite and multiple Dell quad core computers. Software packages include Accelrys, Material Studio, ANSYS, GROMACS, Lammps, MATLAB. Training also available on I-Tasser, NAMD, VMD, Rasmol, QT/XMgrace, Material Studio, ANSYS, GROMACS, Lammps, MATLAB, SYBYL-X and Autodock.

Class 100/1000 micro and nanofabrication facility for top-down as well as bottom-up synthesis including for micro and nanoelectronics, MEMS, biofabrication, and microfluidics.

JSNN Soft Matter & Nanobiology Core includes Biocleanroom, BSL2 and BSL3 Cell/Tissue Culture labs, Siemens Magnetom Trio MRI 3T, Spinning Disc Confocal Microscope with Live Cell Stage, Variable Pressure SEM with Deben cold stage, Fluorescence and Assay Systems, FACSAria III Flow Cytometer, Spectrophotometer, Microplate Sample Processor. Visio Trio Cell Profiling System, Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer Horiba SPRi-Lab+ and Sequencing/Genomics instruments - MiSeq DNA Sequencer, Fast PCR System, Thermal Cycler and Gel Electrophoresis System.

This is a user-operated facility that allows investigators to micro-dissect from tissue samples specific subsets of cells or sub-cellular structures, which usually are subjected to further protein or nucleic acid analyses. Users are required to undergo training.