Research facilities, UW-Biochem Modern biochemical research depends heavily on instrumentation and other supporting facilities. Individual laboratories in the Department are well equipped with instrumentation necessary to achieve the goals of the lab. In addition, there are many pieces of shared equipment in the Department. The Department and the campus have a commitment to maintaining the most modern equipment for biochemical research, and both departmental and campus funds along with federal grant funds are used to maintain and upgrade the instruments available for research.
Projects focus on structural determinations and development of methods.
The instruments in the facility include an isothermal titration calorimeter, differential scanning calorimeter, analytical ultracentrifuge, circular dichroism spectrometer, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, and surface plasmon resonance detector. This ensemble of instruments enables thorough characterization of conformation, structure, and complexation. These interrelated properties are the basis for biological function. The facility is directed by Professor Ron Raines and is supervised by an Instrumentation Specialist who helps students perform their experiments. Computing Facilities Members of the Department are linked by an advanced computer network and significant facilities for computing, sequence analysis and molecular graphics are available.