Specialist Equipment

 

PCR PCR is a major technique used at the SABC. To minimise potential contamination, the SABC has dedicated rooms for template preparation, reaction setup, thermal cycling and result analysis. The SABC has dedicated PCR Thermal Cycler room with machines from various manufacturers including: - PE/Applied Biosystems (1 x 480, 9 x 2400, 1 x 9600, 6 x 9700, 3 x 2700) - MJ Research Dyad - Corbett Research (FTS-1 capillary PCR) - Techne (PHC-3) in situ PCR - Hybaid OmniGene (3 x heating blocks) The first Applied Biosystems PRISM 7700 Sequence Detector system in Australia was acquired by the Centre. This system allows simultaneous generation and real-time detection/quantitation of PCR products using a fluorogenic 5' nuclease assay.

MALDI-TOF MASS SPECTROMETER The SABC acquired the first Perseptive Biosystems Voyager DE-PRO MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer of DNA and protein. This system allows fully automated analysis of 400 samples, the highest throughput facilities in Australia.

SEQUENCING The SABC has Applied Biosystems 377 and 373A DNA sequencing systems, with the latest sequencing/Genescan software. The 373A has a 48cm stretch/XL upgrade. These instruments give the Centre the capacity to perform the analysis of 128 microsatellites, AFLPs or sequence samples. In addition the the SABC also has: - a BioRad Biofocus 2000 capillary gel electrophoresis system - a BioRad GS700 Imaging Densitometer for the analysis of gels.

ROBOTICS At the Centre the Beckman Biomek 2000 robotic workstaion facilitates the high throughput and reproducibility required in modern molecular biology research/diagnositcs. It is used for many of the routine and developmental procedures including PCR and DNA sequence and reaction set up, ELISA applications, and isolation of nucleic acids. It is also fully equipped for PCR with an integrated MJ Research Dyad thermal cycler.

PACKARD CYCLONE PHOSPHOIMAGER The phosphoimager gives high resolution images of autoradiographs and provides higher sensitivity than film based systems.