Research Facilities in Biological Sciences

The Biological Sciences building, with nearly three acres of space, contains numerous research laboratories. These facilities are supplemented by labs in the adjacent Life Sciences Building . Special departmental facilities are available for calcium imaging and video enhanced light microscopy, image processing, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, automated DNA synthesis and sequencing, protein purification, peptide synthesis, CD spectrophotometry. A wide variety of plants and animals are maintained for study within the departmental greenhouse, aquarium room, small animal facility and numerous environmental chambers.

The Center for Comparative Functional Genomics is located in the University at Albany's East Campus research facility. It maintains staffed core facilities for molecular biology, biochemistry, cell culture and transgenesis. New equipment at this facility includes ABI 3700 and 310 DNA sequencers, a GMS 417 microarrayer, a GSI Lumonics Scan Array 4000 three-laser scanner, a Biomek 2000 Biorobotics workstation, a Storm 860 phosphoimager, a Shimadzu fluorimeter, a Precision Detectors light scattering detector, and ABI 5700 quantitative PCR machine and other thermocyclers. Also on the East campus exist the transgenic mouse facility, capable of generating both transgenic and knockout mice, and the bioinformatics/computational support core, with many high-end computer workstations and software packages for molecular modeling and analysis.

Several off-campus research facilities are also available including: the high voltage electron microscope (one of two nationwide) at the downtown New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center; and for students in ecology and animal behavior, the nearby Albany Pinebush and Huyck Preserves offer opportunities for field research.