Facilities
Chemistry and Biochemistry Building.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Montana State University understands the important roll of instrumentation in research and training. Our department is committed to providing students, faculty, and staff with the instruments they require to stay at the forefront of research.
Structural Biology is well represented in our department and both NMR and X-ray equipment are available. Chemists and Biochemists alike benefit from the excellent NMR Instrumentation; 600, 500, 300, and 250 MHz NMR spectrometers. These instruments are used in routine analysis of small molecules and also protein structural determination.
The Montana State University Macromolecular X-ray Crystallography Laboratory houses all equipment needed for in-house macromolecular structure determination. Equipment includes a Rigaku High Flux Micro-Max 007 X-ray generator and two image plate detectors (MAR 345, R-Axis 4++). Each image plate detector is complemented with Osmic Confocal Optics and an Oxford Instruments CryoJet. The facility is also equipped for macromolecular crystallization with a Mosquito crystallization robot (TTP Labtech), constant temperature crystal growth chambers, microscopes, etc. Two Linux workstations are dedicated to data collection and reduction and include 10 terabytes of hard disk space.
The Department also boasts high frequency CW and pulsed EPR instrumentation, a dynamic light scattering instrument, an isothermal titration microcalorimeter, an ultrafast femtosecond laser system, 3 tunable high resolution Nd: YAG pumped pulsed dye laser systems, and a quartz crystal microbalance capable of monitoring dissipation. Investigations of high energy gas-phase and gas-surface molecular interaction are conducted using a molecular beam apparatus that was originally designed by Nobel Laureate, Y. T. Lee, for crossed-beam studies of elementary reaction dynamics, and is one of the premier machines in the world for this purpose. Employing a pulsed hyperthermal atomic-oxygen beam, produced by laser detonation of O2, a wide range of high energy reaction are conducted with this apparatus. We have spectrometers for Raman, FTIR, fluorescence, CD/MCD, and X-ray photoelectron spectrometry. In addition the equipment housed in our department, campus microscopy capabilities include transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy with cryogenics (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), confocal imaging, and laser micro dissection and capture.
The mission of the Mass Spectrometry, Proteomics, and Metabolomics Facility is to seed methods, technology, and applications to research labs at Montana State University and affiliated programs. This facility offers a full range of services from single samples to complete shotgun proteomics and metabolomics projects.
Periodic hands-on training sessions are offered by the Facility. The goal of the training modules is to expand facility access to researchers with little previous training in proteomics, metabolomics, or mass spectrometry. Individual training can also be arranged. Please contact the facility personnel listed below if you wish to be trained. The Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Facility is supported with funding from the CoBRE Center for the Analysis of Cellular Mechanisms and Systems Biology and the Murdock Charitable Trust.