Research Core Facilities at UTSA

The Facilities described herein offer services and access to metrology and processing tools to all interested UTSA faculty and students. In some cases, the access is also extended to outside users such as national laboratories, universities and corporations. The respective research units should be contacted for specific details on their services and equipment.

Computational Biology Initiative (CBI)

CBI is a new interdisciplinary initiative that was launched in January 2005 and involves the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) and the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). The overall goal of this Program is to build the computational infrastructure to significantly promote and advance collaborative interdisciplinary bioscience research in San Antonio.

Director: Mr. Zhiwei Wang
Department of Biology
UTSA 1604 Campus,
Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Bldg,
Office: BSE 3.112
Phone: (210) 458-7078
Fax: (210) 458-5658
Email:

Website: http://cbi.utsa.edu
Services: Computational biology related services, including computing resources, data storage, bioinformatics software and training.

Equipment:

Sun E2900 server- 12 Dual-Core CPUs, 96 Gb RAM
Sun Data Storage Server - 10 TB Disk Space with tape backup system
DELL 30-node cluster system, each node has 2 dual-core CPUs and 8G RAM
Five Dell 670/690 high-end workstations - Dual CPUs, 6-8 Gb RAM
MAC G5 workstation - Dual CPUs, 8 Gb RAM
Four Sun 4100/4200 servers, 2 Dual-Core CPUs, 4-8 Gb RAM
Ten Sun Ultra-20 workstations - 1 CPU, 1 Gb RAM

Software:

50 MatLab floating licenses
Three GeneSpring licenses
Two Imaris licenses
Ten GeneSifter online accounts.
Redhat Linux, site license for UTSA/UTHSCSA

MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) Research Laboratory

Director: Arturo A. Ayon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy Department

Office: UTSA 1604 Campus,
Science Building, Room 4.03.10
Phone: (210) 458-7245
Fax: (210) 458-7609

Facility Manager: Hongbing Jin, Ph.D.
Research Scientist Associate V
MEMS Research Laboratory
University of Texas at San Antonio, West Campus
One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249
Phone: (210) 458-6842
Fax: (210) 458-5947
Email:
Website: http://www.utsa.edu/memslab/

Services:

Microfabrication Training and Consulting
Thin Film Characterization

Instrumentation:

Porosimeter
Vector Network Analyzer
Interferometer
Ellipsometer
Profiler
Contact Angle Measurement
Film Stress
Tensile Tester
Metal Evaporator
Hot Embosser
Photolithography

Electron Microscope Research Center

The main goal of the Research Center is to provide expertise in transmission (TEM) and electron microscopy (SEM) to researchers at UTSA, the San Antonio vicinity area and in the National and International community. We provide assistance with experiment design, data analysis, and manuscript and grant writing for both biological and non-biological studies.

Director: Gjumrakch Aliev, M.D., Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor of Cardiovascular and Neuropathology,
College of Sciences
Office: UTSA 1604 Campus,
Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Bldg,
Room BSE 1.654
Phone: (210) 458-4518
Fax: (210) 458-4506
Email:

Services: SEM and TEM organic and non-organic material investigation including data interpretation, as well as a variety of specialized biomedical and biological techniques.

Major Equipment:

TEM, Jeol JEM-1230 with digitized pictures capture system
SEM, Jeol SEM-850 with digitized pictures capture system

Auxiliary Equipment:

Ultramicrotome, Reichert-Jung
2 stereoscopes, Wild M3Z and Wild M32
Critical Dry Point

Proteomics Laboratory

The Proteomics Laboratory is an RCMI-funded core lab focused on capillary liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS)-based proteomic analysis. Services provided include consulting, data collection, and data analysis for sequence-specific protein identification, quantification, and characterization (including post-translational modifications). Instrumentation and software includes a capillary LC/MS/MS system with collision-induced dissociation (CID) and electron-transfer dissociation (ETD) and a 10 node probability-based protein database searching algorithm, respectively.

Director: Robert Renthal, Ph.D.
Professor, Biology Dept.
Office: BSB 2.03.32
Phone: (210) 458-5452

Facility Manager: William E. Haskins, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Research & Manager of Proteomics Laboratory
Dept. of Biology - BSE 3.108A
Phone: (210) 458-6975
Fax: (210) 458-5658
Email:

Facility Office: University of Texas at San Antonio (1604 Campus),
One UTSA Circle
San Antonio, Texas 78249-0662
Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Bldg,
BSE 3.108
Phone: (210) 458-5452
Fax: (210) 458-4467

Website: http://proteomics.utsa.edu

Services:

Consulting.
Data Collection.

LC/MS/MS with CID
LC/MS/MS with ETD
LC/MS

Data Analysis.

MASCOT Database Searching
PEAKS De Novo Sequencing
SCAFFOLD Report
Molecular Mass & Formula

Instrumentation:

BIO-RAD ExQuest Spot cutter and Gel Doc XR (open-access)
Eksigent nanoLC-2D w/autosampler
Thermo-Fisher LTQ w/CID & ETD

Software:

MASCOT (10 nodes)
PEAKS
SCAFFOLD
PDQuest

Research Center in Minority Institution (RCMI) Advanced Imaging Core

Facility Manager: Colleen Witt, Ph.D.
Assistant Research Professor, Department of Life Sciences

Office: UTSA 1604 Campus,
Biotechnology, Sciences and Engineering Bldg,
BSE 3.110
Phone: (210) 458-7043
Email:

Services:

Personal and group training in the theory and application of light microscopy including brightfield, differential interference contrast, epi-fluorescence, confocal, and multi-photon imaging.
Personal and group training in quantitative image analysis.
Hands-on assistance in data acquisition and analysis.
Consultation in experimental design and set-up.
Assistance in manuscript preparation and grant writing.

Equipment:

BioRad 1024 confocal
Zeiss 510 Meta confocal
two (2) multi-photon imaging systems fully equipped for electrophysiology and live tissue imaging
Leica Laser Knife system

Software:

Full suite of Imaris 2/3/4D analysis software by Bitplane AG
2/3D AutoDeblur deconvolution software by MediaCybernetics
Matlab