Acquisition of Instruments for Biosample Analyses in Research and Teaching

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This award supports purchase of three major instruments to be used for analytical biochemistry in research and teaching efforts at a predominantly undergraduate institution. The award, to a group of faculty with related interests in information processing in complex biological systems, will permit acquisition and operation of a high pressure liquid chromatography system, an elemental analyser, and a phospoimaging system. These instruments will be placed in a central shared laboratory where they will be maintained by an experienced research technician. Expected research uses include the following: studies of nutrient movement within fungal mycelia; long-term analysis of soil chemistry in the New Jersey Pinelands; analysis of the effects of circadian rhythms and sleep-waking cycles on distribution of thyroid hormones and related CNS neurotransmitters; clarification of the neurotransmitter histology of a unique feeding circuit in Pantadon buchholzi, a fish with an unusual eye that receives light simultaneously from air and water; and others. In addition, the equipment will be used to enhance numerous graduate and undergraduate course offerings in biology and chemistry. The availability of this equipment will allow student researchers at both graduate and undergraduate levels to have hands-on experience with sophisticated research instruments. Courses that will benefit from the new equipment include biochemistry, cell physiology, molecular biology, general ecology, practical field ecology, and a proposed laboratory course in neuroscience and others. The equipment will also benefit several outreach programs that bring participants into the research laboratories of Rutgers/Camden faculty.