Our newest addition, Biochemistry Professor Shahir Rizk, was given funds by the college to prepare his laboratory for research - and now his laboratory boasts some new additions. Because Rizk works with proteins he must first grow cells which are the plantations from which he harvests his macromolecules. These cells are grown in his MaxQ 4000 temperatuare-regulated shaker (top right). He then applies high-g forces to suspensions of the broken cells in his Sorvall ST-8R cooled centrifuge (top left) to separate protein from nucleic acid and broken membrane. Next Rizk can send his solutions through his AKTA Stat protein purification unit (bottom right) for further separation. Finally he can analyze his purified protein with his new NanoDrop 2000 UV-visible spectrophotometer (bottom left) to quantitatively determine how much protein he ultimately collected. This last instrument mimics the traditional spectrometers, but without the need for a cuvette and uses much less material - actually a microliter (not nano!) amount of solution. All of the instruments are sold by Thermo Scientific except for the protein purification unit which is sold by General Electric.
