Shared Research Facilities and Equipment

The Enology Services Laboratory offers basic and advanced chemical analysis of craft beverage products. Detailed analyses such as phenolics, aroma compounds, and microbiology panels are also available. Call to discuss tailored analytical services.

The Pathology Services Core is a core facility in the UNC School of Medicine administered by the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. We offer access to sophisticated digital pathology platforms and study design support to all UNC investigators to enhance translational research. Services are also open to users from other academic institutions and industry.

The TMS Laboratory provides mass spectrometry analysis and training to the UNC-Greensboro campus community and the surrounding Piedmont Triad. Our instrumentation can be tailored to small molecule, metabolomics, and/or protein/peptide analyses. Ionization Sources: ESI, APPI, APCI, MALDI, DESI Separation Instrumentation: Waters Aquity UPLC, Agilent 1100 HPLC Open to scientific researchers in the Piedmont Triad on a fee for service basis who are in need of mass spectrometry analysis. (Please see website http:triadmslab.uncg.edu)

The Atomic Absorption Spectrometry Lab provides arsenic speciation analysis that determines the levels of inorganic arsenic and levels of its methylated metabolites in simple solutions and/or biological matrices.

The Animal Metabolism Phenotyping Core provides contemporary phenotyping techniques for metabolism and energy balance in mouse models of obesity and nutritionally relevant disease. With locations at both the UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Nutrition Research;Institute campuses, the Core provides access to state-of-the-art methods, equipment, and populations to support high quality and high throughput phenotyping of energy balance components in mice.

The UNC Biomarker Mass Spectrometry Core Facility provides expertise for qualitative and quantitative analysis of small molecular weight biomarkers including nucleic acids, peptides, and metabolites. In addition to LC/MS/MS analyses, we offer HPLC with UV detection and trace elemental analysis by ICP-MS. Areas of focus for the facility have included DNA and protein adducts as markers of chemical exposure, oxidative stress, and endogenous DNA damage, characterization of chemical reaction products, identification and quantitation of metabolites, multi-element analysis and arsenic speciation. The services and analyses performed within the facility enable investigators to study the molecular mechanisms of environmentally based diseases as well as the relationships between genetic and environmental factors. Research applications: Targeted quantitation of biomarkers of exposure and effect including DNA adducts, protein adducts, DNA-DNA and DNA-protein crosslinks, metabolites, and metals; Unbiased differential mass profiling; HPLC purification of reaction mixtures; Molecular weight and structural characterization of synthetic standards. Instrumentation: Sciex 6500 triple quad mass spec with Agilent 1290 Infinity II UHPLC; Thermo TSQ Quantum Ultra triple quad mass spec with Waters NanoAcquity UPLC; Thermo TSQ Quantum Ultra triple quad mass spec with Waters Acquity UPLC; Agilent 6520 Accurate-Mass Quadrupole Time-of-Flight mass spec with Agilent 1200 Rapid Resolution LC; Agilent 7500cx ICP-MS Inductively Coupled Plasma mass spec with Agilent 1260 Infinity Bioinert HPLC; Agilent 1200 HPLC for offline purification and fraction collection. Resources: Full service sample analyses as well as training for independent operation; Consultation for proposal submission and/or project feasibility; Method development; Data interpretation and generation of experimental sections and figures for publications. Fees are based on hourly usage of instrumentation and staff time, so costs correlate with the degree of effort required and the duration of analyses.

The Duke Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Center is a shared instrument facility. It provides access to high field NMR instrumentation, training and expert consultation on advanced applications for research at Duke and in the Southeastern region. 300, 400, 500, 600 and 800 MHz NMR spectrometers are available to users. Additional information and NMR Center policies can be found on the Center website https://sites.duke.edu/nmrcenter/instruments/

The Duke Viral Vector Core (DVVC) provides services to investigators in custom design and construction, purification, and titering of various viral vector types for research use. Custom cloning includes assembly of viral vectors from simple one-step integration of genes into ready-to-go cassettes to multi-step cloning of complex constructs. DVVC has plasmids available that can produce short hairpin (sh) RNA for knocking down gene expression or bicistronic messages from IRES or P2A sequences. Viruses can be made so that protein expression (or knockdown) is constitutive or inducible. Constructs generated by the Core or provided by investigators serve as starting materials for generation of concentrated virus stocks. In addition, the Core has a number of ready-to-dispense aliquots of frequently used viral vectors (combining different reporters and effectors with a variety of promoters). The DVVC facilitates the use of these powerful research tools by investigators across diverse fields of study such as systems neuroscience, stem cell biology, metabolism, ageing, cancer biology and others. Services are open to researchers within the Duke University Medical Center, Duke University, as well as outside investigators.

The Crystallography and Computational Biosciences Core provide access to cutting-edge macromolecular X-ray diffraction as well as computational modeling and simulation methods.

The GSL provides Next Generation DNA sequencing, Sanger sequencing, genotyping and other support services to NC State faculty and the greater scientific research community.