Description of Research Facilities
The laboratory spaces allocated to the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) are located in three buildings within walking distance of each on the campus at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California: the Health Education Center (HEC), Banfield Veterinary Clinic Center (BVCC) on the east side, and the University Research Center (URC) on the west side of the campus at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California.
Research space in the Health Education Center, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona:
The CVM research space in the Health Education Center (HEC) comprises a newly remodeled 200 sqft laboratory strictly dedicated to the isolation and culture of stem cells. This clean room is equipped with two CO2 and O2 humidified incubators, a biosafety cabinet (Logica, LabCONCO), a table top refrigerated centrifuge (Eppendrof Model 5810R), a 5L analog water bath, an analytical Balance, a shaking incubator, a liquid nitrogen tank dedicated to stem cell banking, a vacuum aspirator collection system, a 38CF glass refrigerator, two -20 and -80 freezers and a phase-contrast inverted Microscope (Primo Vert from Carl Zeiss).
Adjacent to the stem cell room, we have access to shared equipment in a12,640 sq. ft laboratory. The shared equipment includes; two Balances (Mettler Toledo AB104, Madell electronic), one Biosafety Cabinet (Forma Scientific), Shaking Incubator (New Brunswick, Max Q), Cold room (ColPak, Lab Hallway), one Ice Machine (Hoshizaki America Inc.), Fume Hood (Forma Scientific), An oven, two Centrifuge (Eppendorf 5810R), five -80 Freezers (four Thermo Scientific, one Revco), two -20 Freezers (VWR, Kenmore), two humidified CO2 Incubators (Forma series II, Thermo Electron Cooperation), Confocal Microscope (Nikon TE2000-U), cell culture Inverted Microscope (Nikon, TMS), Ultra-pure Water System (Milli-Q Direct)and one autoclave (Steris, AMSCO Lab250). Assays of CFU-f count, differentiation (Staining & microscopy) will be performed in this HEC lab facility.
The CVM research space located in the HEC center also includes a 100 square ft dedicated to the applied genomic center. This room is dedicated to a computational infrastructure including a 30 node parallel cluster computer containing nodes with either an Athlon 1.7 processor and 512 MB ram or dual Pentium III processors and 1GB of ram which resides in a dedicated 100 square foot computational facility providing appropriate temperature control.
Research space in the Banfield Veterinary Clinic Center, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona:
In the Banfield Veterinary Clinic Center (BVCC), a ~300 sq. ft room serves the needs of non- terminal research. This room is utilized for the storage of equipment used in clinical projects (such as pressure mats for gait analysis) and is equipped with two computers and desks for faculty, visitors and students working on scholarly writing or data analysis. The room is also equipped with a refrigerator freezer combo, a vortex and two computational stations to run immunoassays. The space is temporarily assigned to CVM faculty members for other use such as ELISA assays, on an as needed basis.
Research space in the University Research Center, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona:
The research laboratory at University Research Center (URC) comprises an 8550 sq.ft research area. This large area is subdivided into different departmental laboratories. The designated CVM laboratory is a 1540 sq ft laboratory space with a 120 sq. ft. cell culture room. The laboratory is designed to allow standard molecular assays related to molecular biology, immunology and gene expression. This laboratory contains a biosafety hood, a chemical hood, two water baths (20L & 6L), incubators, a light microscope with camera attachments, balances, hot plates, gel electrophoresis equipment, nanodrop bioanalyzer (NanoVue), a Biorad PCR Cycler, two refrigerators (Fisher Scientific), three -20 freezers (Kenmore, Sci-Cool, Fisher Scientific), high speed centrifuge (Sorvall-Discovery 100E), a Beckman ultracentrifuge, a flow cytometer (Cytomics FC500), ice machine and another liquid nitrogen tank. The 120 sq. ft. cell culture room equip with a CO2 humidified incubator, a biosafety cabinet (Forma Scientific Class II A/B3), a table top refrigerated centrifuge (Thermo-IEC) and a cell culture microscope (Nikon-TMS).
Adjacent to this CVM lab, shared equipment is accessible in a 3000 sq. ft laboratory. The shared equipment includes two biosafety cabinets (Nuaire Class II A/B3 and Thermo Scientific Class II A2), seven microcentrifuges (three Eppendrof model 5417C, two Denville model 210A and two Denville model 260D); two refrigerated microcentrifuge (Eppendrof model 5810R); spectrophotometer (GE model Nanovue), multiple gel electrophoresis apparatus, tissue homogenizer (MISONIX), and two gel documentation digital imagining stations (BioRad VersaDoc and Fotodyne Inc.), four Thermocyclers (three Applied Bisystems model Veriti 96 wells and one BioRad model MJ Mini 64 wells) and one Real-Time PCR (BioRad, model MJ Minid with miniOpticon 64 wells) to be used for quantative RT-PCR assays. Moreover, an adjacent shared equipment laboratory includes a fluorescent microscope, ultracentrifuges, seven -80 freezers (four Revco, two SANYO, one Thermo Scientific) and a real-time PCR cycler (Applied Biosystem-StepOnePlus). A dishwasher, distilled and Ultra Water purified systems and two autoclaves are available for common usage as well as an adjacent cold room (4°C).
Other space relevant to CVM research at Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona:
In addition to the facilities above, histology sections can be processed and stained in the pathology laboratory in Veterinary Pathology Center (VPC) located in a building adjacent to BVCC, on the same campus.
Animal facilities are available in the Health Education Center (HEC), the University Research Center (URC) and the Health Professions Center (HPC). Capacities and allocations vary with years but are approximately listed below:
- Animal facilities in the HEC building can house up to 19,200 mice and 240 tanks of zebrafish (number in each tank varies depending on the size each fish)
- Animal facilities in the URC building can house up to 114 chicken, 1,240 shrews, 8 naked mole rats, and 120 rats.
- Animal facilities in the HPC building can house up to 3,640 mice, 56 guinea pigs, 250 rats, and 120 hamsters.