Departmental Facilities
The Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences is fully equipped for a wide variety of research applications. Housed within the Integrated Sciences Building, our Department counts with an Embryonic Stem Cell Laboratory, as well as a Pyrosequencer, two microplate readers, two real-time quantitative PCR units, a state-of-the-art frog housing room, a fully equipped animal facility and animal holding rooms, and three walk-in cold rooms. Other research applications carried out in our Department include protein analysis and enzymology, cell and tissue culture BSL1/BSL2/BSL2+, cell and tissue culture BSL3 and ABSL3, digital microscopy imaging, calcium imaging and FRET analysis.
Our Departmental Research Core Facility counts with over 40 pieces of research equipment owned and maintained by Departmental funds, including a digital imaging facility, four large autoclaves, two super-speed centrifuges, two ultracentrifuges, a film developer and darkroom, two environmental shakers, a beta scintillation counter, fluorometers, luminometers, a gamma- source (Cesium) Irradiation facility, a Phosphorimager, and a tissue processing and embedding facility equipped with a Leica CM3050 cryotome. For information about our Research Core Facility, please contact asalicioni [at] vasci [dot] umass [dot] edu (Ana Maria Salicioni).
Our Flow Cytometer (FACS) Facility is equipped with three flow cytometers. A Becton Dickinson LSRII with two fixed alignment lasers (488nm, and 622nm) is available for trained users for 8 parameter analysis. In addition, the Facility is capable of 8 parameter sorting with the 2 laser, BD FACSVantage SE cell sorter as well as 16 parameter analysis and sorting with the 5 laser, fixed alignment, FACSAria II. This facility is supported by a full time Research Faculty. For questions about our FACS Facility, please contact aburnsid [at] vasci [dot] umass [dot] edu (Amy S. Burnside) or lminter [at] vasci [dot] umass [dot] edu (Lisa Minter).
The Massachusetts Pesticide Analysis Laboratory and the Environmental Toxicology Laboratory, both housed in the Morrill Sciences Building, are also part of our Departmental Research capabilities.