Facilities

The RNA Institute Facilities

The RNA Institute is housed in the University at Albany's Life Sciences Research Building which includes four core facilities available for all trainees and faculty: Molecular Biology, Tissue Culture, Biological Imaging, and Structural Chemistry. We have an outstanding environment for research with state of the art equipment to perform analytical, biochemical, biophysical, cellular, chemical computational, and biological experiments. We are powered by the next generation of tools to push the limits of RNA science and technology.

 

RNA Institute Facilities Virtual Tour

Training the next generation of RNA Researchers: The RNA Institute at the University at Albany

Instrumentational Facility

Advanced Instrumentation Facility
  • Waters Acquity I-Class/XevoTQ-S UHPLC/MS Triple Quadrupole
  • Waters Acquity I-class UHPLC/PDA detector
  • Waters Acquity H-Class Bio UHPLC, UV detection & temp-controlled fraction collector
  • Shimadzu HPLC with UV detection and fraction collection
  • Agilent Cary 100 UV/Vis spec with automated cell changers & thermal ramping
  • Perkin Elmer Envision multilabel microplate reader
  • Perkin Elmer Janus automated liquid handlers (x2) with 96 and 384 plates capacity
  • TA Instruments Affinity Nano Auto Isothermal calorimeter with 96-well, temperature-controlled liquid handling autosampler
  • TA Instruments Nano Isothermal Calorimeters (x2)
  • TA Instruments Nano Differential Scanning Calorimeter
  • Bioautomation MerMade 8 oligonucleotide synthesizer
  • BD Aria III fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS)
  • GloMax 96 Microplate Luminometer
  • Sigma RNA libraries, Mission Series including mouse lentiviral shRNA, siRNA Human and rat druggable genome,  Human and mouse esiRNA and human and mouse pooled shRNA and target ID library which enables bench-top transcriptome-wide human miRNA and ncRNA gene target identification.
  • Multilabel Microplate reader – including fluorescence, ultra-sensitive luminescence, absorbance, time-resolved fluorescence (TRF) and TR-FRET, – Envision, PerkinElmer
  • Liquid Scintillation Counter-Tri-Carb, Perkin Elmer
Single Molecule Facility
  • LUMICKS C-Trap

Please contact Ken Halvorsen ([email protected]) to learn more about instrumentation collaborations.

Next Generation Sequencing and Transcriptomics Facility

Our sequencing and transcriptomic instruments utilizes massively parallel sequencing technology to support the acquisition and analysis of genomics (DNA) and/or transcriptomic (RNA) and includes:

  • Illumina NextSeq2000 instrument, reagents, and storage space
  • 10xGenomics Chromium Controller, reagents, and storage space
  • 10xGenomics Xenium spatial transcriptomic system
  • 10xGenomics Chromium X and reagents
  • Qiagen QIAcuity digital droplet PCR system
  • Agilent 5400 Fragment Analyzer system 96-capillary
  • Qubit 4 Fluorometer for NGS quantification and associated reagents
  • Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION with flow cells
  • Oxford Nanopore Technologies PromethION with P2 flow cells

Please contact Robert Merritt ([email protected]) to learn more about NGS collaborations.

RNA Epitranscriptomics and Proteomics Resource

  • Bruker SolariX FTICR MS equipped with a 12 Tesla magnet & ion funnel ESI source for ultra high-resolution characterization of large protein-RNA complexes involved in gene regulation and viral replication processes
  • Waters Synapt G2 HDMS IMS/Q-TOF MS with nanoESI source for testing the effects of small molecule ligands and drug candidates on the conformation of target protein-RNA complexes
  • Thermo-Fisher LTQ-Orbitrap Velox XL MS
  • AdvionTriVersa NanoMate for simultaneous LC/MS coupling to ESI Chip & fractionation

Please contact Qishan Lin ([email protected]) regarding mass spectrometry collaborations.

Computational Facility

  • 6 dual core workstations with 2 NVDIA Tesla GPUs each from Dell
  • Dedicated access to Albany AI Supercomputing Initiative and resources
  • Dedicated access to a 600 core xeon HPC Linux cluster with 10TB storage
  • Dedicated access NYS Supercomputer (Blue Gene) at RPI.
  • Computational software for computer modelling, simulations and in-silico high throughput screening includes Q-Chem, GROMACS and AMBER.

Please contact Sweta Vangaveti ([email protected]) to learn more about computational collaborations. 

Facilities Request

If you need access to any facilities, contact Tammy Reid ([email protected]).