School of Pharmacy Research Facilities
Built in 2010, the State-of-the-Art SOP laboratory occupies 4,500 square feet of laboratory space on the fourth floor of the HPC-II building in the Health Professions campus of Pacific University in Hillsboro. The laboratory is built on a shared common space design, in addition to having dedicated bays for faculty research.
Equipment
Biosafety cabinets and Cell Culture Facilities
The SOP Research Laboratory has four full scale biosafety cabinets that can be utilized for cell culture. These cabinets are each housed within their own room to enhance aseptic maintenance. There are multiple shared cell culture incubators, an autoclave machine, an in-room table top centrifuge, a MUSE cell counter, and a phase contrast microscope. Although most cell use involves mammalian and cancer cell lines, there are dedicated hoods used for the culture of parasites studied by two faculty members.
BD Accuri C6 Flow Cytometer
The BD Accuri™ C6 personal flow cytometer is the newest generation of Flow Cytometers offering enhanced sensitivity, reliability, and capabilities. Flow Cytometry allows rapid single-cell identification and quantification using fluorescently labeled dyes or antibodies. It is an excellent tool that supports a wide array of applications including immunology, cell and cancer biology, plant and microbiology, and industrial applications. This machine can perform multi-parametric Flow Cytometry and can detect four colors in the classic four channels.
The Affymetrix GeneAtlas Personal Microarray System
This is an instrument capable of measuring whole-genome expression (>28,000 coding transcripts). Microarray technology has become a critical tool used to better understand complex biologic mechanisms as they relate to whole cell changes in gene and protein expression.
Two Shimadzu Prominence High Performance Liquid Chromatographs (HPLC)
These instruments are equipped with both diode array and fluorescence detectors and can achieve flow rates up to 10 mL/minute. They are routinely used for quantification of drugs and drug metabolites, as well as other biomolecules, such as polyamines and natural products.
Agilent 6100 liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer (LC-MS) with 1200 series (HPLC)
In addition to the mass spec detector this instrument is equipped with a diode array detector and utilizes a Chemstation interface for straightforward operation and data analysis. The LC-MS utilizes a PEAK nitrogen generator as a nitrogen source and electrospray for ionization and a quadrupole mass analyzer for mass separation. Analytes can be detected using scan, single-ion-monitoring, or flow injection analysis for method development and parameter optimization.
Microplate Reader, Spectrophotometer
Our plate reader has fluorescent and luminescent detection capabilities and offers flexible use across various platforms. There are different spectrophotometers, including those with UV capability that allow both protein and DNA/RNA quantitation.
Shimadzu RF5301 Spectrofluorometer
This instrument is used to evaluate the fluorescent properties of novel compounds and to measure real-time enzyme kinetics using substrates that are converted to fluorescent products.
Shimadzu UV/VIS spectrophotometer
This instrument is routinely used for measuring cytochrome P450 ligand binding and carbon monoxide binding spectra, as well as optical density measurements for bacterial cell culture, drug/chemical stability, kinetics, and a variety of .
Chemical Fume Hoods and Synthetic Capabilities
With three chemical fume hoods, and a RotaVap the SOP Lab is equipped to conduct small-scale chemical synthesis and purification. These hoods are also routinely used for sample preparation to concentrate samples for LC-MS and HPLC analysis of drugs and drug metabolites, and for the isolation of lipids and phospholipids from multiple samples. The hoods are equipped with a needle-concentrator that utilizes nitrogen gas for efficient sample preparation.
Molecular Biology and Pharmacology
The lab has multiple instruments capable of performing state-of-the-art molecular biology, including for real-time PCR. There are numerous Western Blot apparatus, accompanied with a darkroom for film development. The lab has recently acquired a ChemiBlot machine coupled with a camera for capturing Western Blot data.
Differential Centrifugation
The SOP Research Lab possesses multiple centrifuge and ultracentrifuge instruments that provide excellent capabilities for isolating high quality organelles such as mitochondria, microsomes, and others. Our bench top ultracentrifuge can handle small volume preparations of cell fractions.
Bacterial Incubators and Rotators
The lab is equipped with the capability for plasmid cloning and growth.
Protein Expression and Purification Capabilities
With a variety of centrifuges, incubators, bioanalytical instruments, and a 140 square foot cold room the lab is fully equipped to conduct protein expression and purification. Currently, these tools are being used to express cytochrome P450 enzymes, P450 reductase, and cytochrome b5.
Molecular Modeling and Software Capabilities
Five computers are installed with Autodock and Autodock Vina software (from The Scripps Research Institute) for predicting the affinity and binding orientation of small molecule ligands to protein targets and Pymol is available for image rendering. GraphPad Prism 6 and WinNonlin software are available in the lab for curve fitting, kinetic/pharmacokinetic analyses, IC50 determination, and other statistical analyses.