Modern research instrumentation is an integral part of conducting cutting-edge science, and students at Oregon have access to a comprehensive collection of state-of-the-art instrumentation and research facilities. In addition to the facilities themselves, students benefit from a strong curriculum that covers modern scientific instrumentation; comprehensive training from full-time instrumentation specialists, who also consult on the design and implementation of advanced experiments; and an extensive support staff who maintain these high-quality facilities.
Chemistry Research & Instrumentation Services (CRIS)
While the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry houses and maintains some chemical research instrumentation, a large portion of the university’s major research equipment is organized in a shared facility called CAMCOR (Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon).
CAMCOR functions as a service center under the auspices of the UO Vice President for Research and Innovation (VPRI) office. Its open-access facilities provide research training and support for undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff scientists, and external researchers.
Through the department and CAMCOR, Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty, students and postdocs have access to the following additional research instrumentation:
- Agilent 1100 LC/MSD mass spectrometer with ESI and APCI sources coupled to an HPLC
- Waters Q-TOF Mass Spectrometer with MALDI and ESI capabilities
- MicroCal ITC200 Isothermal Titration Calorimeter for measuring solution thermodynamic parameters for metal-ligand and supramolecular/host-guest interactions
- Wyatt Technology Mobius dynamic light scattering and electrophoretic mobility analyzer
- Integrated DSC, DTA, and Thermogravimetric Analyzers for mass analysis of evolved gases
- Perkin-Elmer 1320 GC with 1022 mini-PC controller
- PAR 173/175 for electrochemical studies
- ThermoFisher Scientific FT-IR Spectrometer with ATR (attenuated total reflectance), Seagull reflectance and Vari-GATR
- Horiba TemPro fluorimeter and time-resolved fluorescence lifetime apparatus
- HP 8453 Diode array UV/vis absorption spectrophotometer
- Waters Gel Permeation Chromatography systems (2) equipped with MALLS and reflective index detectors for molecular weight characterization
Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR)
CAMCOR is a full service, comprehensive materials characterization center housed in the state-of-the-art Lorry I. Lokey Laboratories at the University of Oregon. CAMCOR hosts capital-intensive equipment for microanalysis, surface analysis, electron microscopy, semiconductor device fabrication and traditional chemical characterization. Run by dedicated and professional directors who are highly trained and experienced in their fields, CAMCOR can provide technical and professional expertise to solve any of your problems and meet deadlines.
Tools for Biochemistry, Biophysics, & Molecular Biology
Protein Analysis
Agilent 1100 Capillary Liquid Chromatography Systems (2) for LC/MS/MS analyses
Agilent 1100 Analytical HPLC with Diode Array Detection
Voyager MALDI-TOF DE Mass Spectrometer
ThermoFinnigan LTQ-FT Hybrid Linear Ion Trap-FTICR Mass Spectrometer
ThermoFinnigan LCQ Deca XP Plus Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer
Nucleic Acid Analysis
Beckman Capillary DNA Sequencers
GenePix Microarray Reader
Custom DNA Microarray Printer
Applied Biosystems Prism 7900 Real Time PCR
MJ Research Tetrad PCR for large-scale PCR amplifications
Beckman FX System Pipetting Robot with Dual Arms for automated pipetting
Beckman Biomek 2000 Robot for large-scale-replica stamping and plating
Central Facilities– Institute of Molecular Biology
Molecular Dynamics Storm 860 Phosphoimager for visualization of radiolabeled materials on gels, as well as red and blue fluorescence detection.
Biacore X Surface Plasmon Resonance-Based Biosensor for the study of macromolecular interactions and kinetic analyses
Varian XLI Analytical Ultracentrifuge
Varian Inova 600 MHz NMR Spectrometer
3 Area Detectors for Macromolecular X-ray Crystallography
Jobin Yvon/Horiba/Spex Spectrofluorometer with Stopped Flow
Jasco Circular Dichroism Spectrometer
Microcal Mixing Calorimeter
New Brunswick 30-liter Computer-Controlled Fermenter
Liquid Scintillation Counters
Digital Imaging System for Gel Imaging
Automated X-ray Photoprocessor
Preparative Centrifuges, Ultracentrifuges, French Press
Electron Microscopy, Bio-optics, and Histology Facilities
AMR1000A Scanning Electron Microscope
Philips EM300 Transmission Electron Microscope
Philips CM-12 TEM/STEM equipped for cryomicroscopy
BioRad Two-Photon Confocal Microscope
Zeiss Confocal and other Zeiss Research Microscopes
Cryostat and Parafin Sectioning of Tissues
JEOL 6400 Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with Noran Energy
Dispersive X-ray System
Monoclonial Antibody Facility
Production of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies.
Media Preparation Facility
A staffed media kitchen is available for the preparation of all microbiological media.
Shared Laser Facility
Director: Dr. Larry Scatena
scat@uoregon.edu • 541-346-5159
The Shared Laser Facility is a multidisciplinary laser and optics laboratory shared by chemists, materials scientists, optical scientists and physicists. It is available to the university community and others by arrangement. The 3,000-square-foot laboratory is centrally located between the department of chemistry and department of physics. Funds for its operation are provided by the department of chemistry, the optical sciences program of the department of physics, and user fees. Both its location and funding sources reflect the collegiality and intergroup cooperation which the facility helps foster. The proximity of diverse groups provides a unique opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to exchange ideas, share equipment, and keep abreast of research outside their own groups.
A number of state-of-the-art laser systems are currently available in the Shared Laser Facility. Two ultrafast amplified titanium:sapphire (Ti:S) laser systems reside in the facility producing millijoule pulse energies at a 1 kHz repetition rate. One Ti:S laser source produces 2 picosecond pulses and is used to generate picosecond IR pulses tunable from 2.3 microns to about 10 microns. This source is used for a wide variety of second-order non-linear optical (NLO) studies of surfaces and interfaces. The second Ti:S laser source produces 100 femtosecond (10-13 sec) pulses and drives a pair of NLO wavelength conversion sources producing 100-200 femtosecond pulses tunable from 300 nm to 10 microns. This source is used for studies of NLO materials in solution and in thin films; for time-resolved studies of solvation effects on photochemical reaction dynamics; and for NLO studies of surfaces and interfaces. The facility also houses several pulsed Nd:YAG lasers, a pulsed dye laser, a CW modelocked Nd:YAG laser, a CW argon ion laser, sub-30 fs titanium:sapphire oscillator, and several CW dye lasers. These latter laser sources are available for general use on an as-needed basis, and provide a unique capability for allowing investigators to perform so-called “proof-of-principle” experiments before writing grant proposals or investing in dedicated equipment. Other equipment includes a substantial collection of optics and opto-mechanical components (for proto-typing and short-term loan), infrared viewers, oscilloscopes, a laser pulse autocorrelator, a laser wavemeter, a time-correlated single photon counting system, beam spatial profiler, fiber optic spectrometer and multiple laser-power and energy meters.
The Shared Laser Facility is supervised by Dr. Lawrence Scatena, who is available to advise and assist any groups using laser- and/or optics-based experimental techniques. Such assistance may range from proposal writing, experiment design, design and construction of custom laser sources, data acquisition and processing, computer programming and interfacing, laser diagnosis, maintenance, and repair.
Computational Tools
The Department of Chemistry, its associated research institutes, and the University of Oregon as a whole, offer a variety of computing resources that suit the needs of experimentalists and theoreticians alike. Many laboratories have one or more dedicated Unix/Linux workstations, as well as computer-intensive data processors operating under the Windows or Macintosh platforms.
UO Information Technology manages a large time-sharing system comprised of a Sun Enterprise 5500 multiprocessor Unix server, auxiliary AMD Opteron nodes, and a pair of production network-attached storage filers. In addition to the “bread-and-butter” applications, this system provides a host of development tools (C/C++, Fortran, Perl, and Tck/Tl, among others) and mathematical/statistical packages (including Mathematica, MatLab, Maple, R, SAS and SPlus), some of which are available as site-licensed software. Load-balancing and mirroring technologies work in tandem to deliver a resilient computing environment. UO Information Technology also administers a 6-node dual AMD Opteron cluster for operations benefiting from parallelization.
The Neuroinformatics Center (NIC) Grid provides a high-performance computing infrastructure that is ideally suited to the collaborative or independent work of scientists. The grid includes a 16-cpu SGI PRISM system, a 32-dual Intel Xenon cluster, four 8-cpu IBM p655 eServers and a 16-cpu IBM p690 eServer. The NIC grid uses a variety of technologies including Globus, MPI, and OpenMP, to harness the power of parallel computing. The Oregon Center for Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science is in the final stages of acquiring a state-of-the-art 85-node cluster, which will serve the needs of scientists in chemical physics as well as atomic and condensed matter physics.
The Department of Chemistry and associated institutes also count on the help of the Technical Science Shop, which provides first-rate consulting for software/hardware and builds custom-made systems. The University of Oregon has an award-winning network connectivity, which includes dedicated supercomputer ports, and hosts an NSF-sponsored logistical networking node, promoting the collaborative research efforts of scientists here and abroad.
Allan Price Science Commons and Research Library
The Science Library offers students of chemistry more than 300,000 volumes and 3,500 journals dedicated to science. Far more is available for researchers in electronic format in the form of journals, indexes and abstracts available online. There are a number of public workstations in the library for searching library catalogs and databases, accessing online journals, browsing the Web, etc. To assist students further, the Science Library has an Information Technology Center (ITC), which provides access to graphics, multimedia, and scientific computing applications and electronic resources. At the lab, you can scan images and text, create stunning graphics, 3D images, and digital video projects; browse the Internet; check your email; do word processing; and modify your personal web page. The Science ITC offers Macintosh and Windows computers, scanners (including a slide scanner), CD and DVD burners and color printing.
Other Support Facilities
Centrally-located support facilities include student and professional machine shops and an electronics shop. The staff has been trained to accomplish nearly any task required for the construction and maintenance of scientific instrumentation. The university’s science supply store stocks common scientific materials and equipment. A chemical waste support facility is adjacent to the science complex.