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Bld 47/49 - Microbiology Lab & Warehouse

 Buildings 47 and 49 (Marine Ecology Laboratory) are joined facilities that house the majority of GED's ecosystems effects research and GED's warehouse.
The 8500 square foot building has 23 rooms of laboratory research space and research support areas such as a sterile transfer room, a radioisotope laboratory, a darkroom, a staging area for research cruises, and two sterilization rooms.
Research in this laboratory building focuses on characterizing and understanding environmental problems as they relate to nutrient enrichment of coastal waters and wetlands and the biochemical responses of higher organisms to anthropogenic stressors.


Some of the multi-disciplinary efforts include:

  • Developing nutrient load-response models for estuarine and coastal waters including the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico
  • Investigating the potential of microbial metagenomic approaches for ecosystem monitoring
  • Developing protein expression profiling as a means to screen chemicals for pathway specific toxicity using small fish species.
  
mass spectrometer
 A Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometer is used for measurements of N2/Ar and O2/Ar for determining sediment denitrification and oxygen flux rates.
 
The building contains laboratories for determining the concentrations of nutrients in water and sediment samples. Instrumentation available includes an automated nutrient analyzer, a CHN analyzer, and a Total Organic Carbon analyzer.
nutrient analyzer
 CHN analyzer
organic carbon analyzer
 picture of lab worker
 
picture of anaerobic chamber
 An anaerobic chamber, containing an oxygen-free atmosphere, is used in the Biogeochemistry lab to process sediment samples for measuring oxygen-sensitive chemicals and to cultivate anaerobic bacteria.
lab worker
 The Biogeochemistry lab is equipped for wet chemical analysis of sediments.
Molecular biological research focused on determining the ecological condition of near coastal waters is conducted in this laboratory. Here genomic techniques used in microbial ecology such as gene cloning and polymerase chain reaction are routinely performed.
applying genomic techniques
 applying genomic techniques
lab worker using PCR  
Using real-time PCR, shown above, DNA amplification can be monitored in real-time through the use of fluorescent reporter molecules whose signal increases in direct proportion to the amount of the specific amplicon produced during the reaction. This technique can be used to estimate the copies of specific microbial genes in an environmental sample
A Bio-Rad time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS) utilizes SELDI and MALDI (Surface Enhanced and Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization) technology to measure proteins and peptides in biological samples in the Proteomics lab. mass spectrometer
Biomek workstation
 The Beckman Biomek 2000 Workstation facilitates liquid handling procedures to ensure quality control in high-throughput processing of biological samples applied to SELDI ProteinChips.
Addition of an energy absorbing molecule to biological samples applied to SELDI ProteinChips enables protein and peptide ionization for mass spectrometry analysis. sampling molecules

 

 

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