What the facility does
A state-of-the-art research centre providing support, training and services in protein and cell biology, high-throughput screening, chemical synthesis and purification, mass spectrometry, and NMR.
Areas of expertise
The CMCB is a unique facility designed to serve academic and industrial researchers working in the disciplines of chemistry and biology. It is professionally managed by five full-time staff and features six integrated labs designed to cover a large scope of research activities. The high-throughput screening lab supports drug discovery activities and features a small molecule collection of 320 000 compounds; the protein and cell biology lab assists with bacterial and mammalian cell culturing activities, protein purification and assay technologies; the bioanalyticallab offers proteomics and metabolomics services as well as high resolution mass confirmation; the chemical synthesis lab supports natural product isolation and purification, as well as chemical synthesis activities; the NMR lab offers a 700 MHz instrument with cryoprobeand the bioinformatics lab offers a range of computational services within the biological sciences.
Research services
High-throughput screening, in-vitro screening of custom compounds, cell growth and lysis, protein purification and analysis, chromatographic separations, proteomics, metabolomics, high resolution mass confirmation, biomolecular interactions, kinetic analysis, spectrometry, medicinal chemistry, natural-product isolation, structural determination of organic compounds
Sectors of application
- Agriculture, animal science and food
- Chemical industries
- Education
- Environmental technologies and related services
- Fisheries and aquaculture
- Healthcare and social services
- Life sciences, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
- Manufacturing and processing
Specialized labs and equipment
| Specialized lab | Equipment | Function |
|---|---|---|
| High-Throughput Screening Lab | Biomek® FXP automated liquid handler | Dual multi-channel (96- and 384-) pipetting heads, plus reagent cooling, plate shaking and bar-code tracking capabilities |
| Biomek® FXP automated liquid handler for Biosafety Level 2 screens | Fully enclosed in a HEPA-filter biological safety cabinet ideal for assays involving Biosafety Level 2 agents | |
| Off-line Biomek® FXP automated liquid handler | For plate replication, reformatting and Span-8 pod with eight individual probes for cherry picking | |
| Cytomat™ 6001 incubators | Automated incubator that provides uniform and stable temperature, humidity and CO2 conditions; incubation temperatures range from 10ºC to 50ºC; integrated with the Biomek liquid handler | |
| EnVision® 2104 multi-label reader | Microplate reader measures luminescence, fluorescence,and absorbance, with AlphaScreen capabilities; equipped with shaker and heater options; monochromator- and filter-based; integrated with Biomek platforms and an additional stand-alone instrument with stackers that can accommodateup to 50 assay plates | |
| BioRAPTR™ Flying Reagent Dispenser™ | An automated non-contact dispenser capable of dispensing up to eight reagents into a microplate without cross-contamination; volume ranges from 100 nL to 60 µL | |
| Cytomat™ 24 automated microplate hotel | A large-capacity storage unit for assay plates, tip boxes and reservoirs; integrated with the Biomek liquid handler | |
| SAMI® Workstation EX software | Facilitates graphical assay programming, schedules assays to optimize throughput and records data generated during system operation | |
| Magnetic pin tools | 96 or 384 floating pins offer a cost-effective way to transfer low-volume liquid accurately | |
| ELx405™microplate washer | Provides a wide range of washing capabilities, from gentle washing for cells to vigorous washing for ELISAs | |
| Protein and Cell Biology Lab | Getinge autoclave | Performs steam sterilization of wrapped solids; features liquid cycles with pre-vacuum capabilities |
| Incubators | BSL1 and BSL2 stationary and shaker incubators allow for temperature-controlled incubation; dedicated incubators for bacterial and tissue culture work | |
| BioFlo® 115 benchtop fermenter/bioreactor | Allows for large scale cell culturing and fermentation; Accommodates a wide range of cell types; Integrated control system with 1,3- and 7,5-litre vessels | |
| Nikon Eclipse inverted microscope | For examination and quantification of tissue culture cells | |
| Biological safety cabinets | Three Class II, Type A2 biosafety cabinets; two for bacterial work and one for tissue culture | |
| AirClean hood | Provides laminar flow for sample protection | |
| Constant Systems continuous-flow and one-shot head cell disrupters | Performs continuous-flow and single-pass cell disruption; large volumes of cell suspension can be processed quickly, or the one-shot head can process small sample volumes with minimal loss to lyse cell pellet, paste or suspension | |
| Microson™ ultrasonic liquid processor (Sonicator) | Cell disruption by mechanical vibration; tunes automatically and allows for continuous or pulsed operation | |
| Sorvallsuperspeed centrifuge | Superspeed centrifuge with multiple rotors, including 6 x 1 000 mL and microplate adapters; maximum speed of 70 450 xg | |
| Sorvall ultracentrifuge | Ultracentrifuge with a maximum g-force of 802 000 xg; fixed-angle and swinging-bucket rotors | |
| ÄKTA purifiers and Explorers | Fast protein liquid chromatography systems used for separating proteins from complex mixtures; features include sample pump loading, buffer preparation, scouting function and a 3-D kit to allow for sequential column purification | |
| Synergy™ plate reader | Monochromator- and filter-based microplate reader measures absorbance, luminescence and fluorescence; features an automatic injector for reagent dispensing and allows for fixed-temperature incubation during kinetic assays | |
| Tecan ULTRA Evolution plate reader | 1 536-well multi-read filter-based plate reader (absorbance, fluorescence, luminescence, polarization and time-gated fluorescence measures ps-ns lifetime via TCSPC) | |
| Tecan Sunrise | 96-well microplate reader with filter-based absorbance measurement; capable of performing growth curves | |
| SpectraMax® Plus384 plate readers | Absorbance microplate reader capable of reading cuvettes and 96- and 384-well plates; monochromator provides a range of available wavelengths | |
| Bio-Rad ProteOn™ SPR system | Detects the interaction between two unlabelled biomolecules in real time; assesses protein-protein, protein small molecule and protein DNA interactions; kinetic analysis (on/off rates) | |
| Typhoon imaging system | Multi-mode scanner with capabilities for fluorescence, storage phosphor and luminescence | |
| Electroporator | Permeabilizes cell membranes | |
| Bio-Rad CFX96 real-time PCR detection system | System has a gradient feature, allowing for optimization of multiple reactions in a single experiment and can discriminate up to five targets in a single reaction well | |
| Bio-Rad Experion™ automated electrophoresis | Employs LabChip microfluidic separation technology to automate electrophoresis for nucleic acid and protein analysis; performs all the steps of gel electrophoresis, including sample separation, staining, destaining, imaging and data analysis in as little as 30 minutes | |
| Bioanalytical Lab | Bruker micrOTOF II mass spectrometer integrated with an Agilent 1200 rapid resolution HPLC system | Medium-resolution (R = ~10k) time-of-flight mass spectrometer for high-sensitivity MS analysis of small molecules and large analytes; provides exact molecular masses for molecular formula determination; excellent for metabolomics analysis |
| LTQ Orbitrap XL mass spectrometer integrated with an Agilent 1290 UHPLC system | High-resolution multi-stage mass spectrometry of protein digests or small molecules separated by 2-D LC; can be used for protein or small molecule identification and proteomics | |
| NMR Lab | Bruker AVIII 700 MHz NMR | Spectrometer that is outfitted with an automated sample changer (SampleJet) and CryoProbe for high-resolution experiments on proton, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus nuclei with a very high degree of sensitivity |
| Chemical Synthesis Lab | Waters ZQ2000 LC/MS | Equipped with both analytical and preparative columns; mass determination up to 2 000 Da, with an accuracy to within 0,2 Da |
| Dionex™ 350 accelerated solvent extraction system | For the extraction of chemicals from dried plants, biota or environmental samples (sediments, air samples); programmable solvents, extraction times, temperatures and pressures; range of sizes of stainless steel cells available | |
| Teledyne CombiFlash® Rf 200 automated flash chromatography system | Uses radio-frequency identification technology to allow for automated separations and fraction collection | |
| Large and small BuchiRotavapor systems | Efficiently removes solvents from samples | |
| CEM microwave synthesizer | A low-frequency energy source increases the efficiency, yield and purity of chemical synthesis reactions; significantly decreases reaction times; equipped with an autosampler | |
| Genevac centrifugal solvent evaporator | High-performance and high-throughput evaporation | |
| Chemspeed SLT100 parallel synthesizer platform | Allows full automation of liquid and solid reagent preparation, multi-step synthesis, workup, purification, analysis and product transfer to storage; can be used for chemical library synthesis, solubility, compatability and stability screening and sample preparation; features a liquid-handling unit, automated weighing station and workflow management software | |
| Lyophilizer | Freeze-dries samples | |
| Bioinformatics Lab | Bioinformatics services | Consultation, data collection, data retrieval, genome assembly, data analysis software and state-of-the-art processing platforms |
| Web design and hosting services | Design, develop and host basic websites to high-end database-driven websites for short- and long-term projects | |
| Data analysis | Custom platforms to analyze high-throughput screening data; data visualization |
Private and public sector research partners
- Michael DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research
- David Braley Human Stem Cell Screening Facility
- Ontario Institute for Cancer Research