Laboratories

The Institute's Laboratory service occupies 4,300 sq. ft. of laboratory space at TMRU, sq. ft. of laboratory at SCU and 320 sq. ft. at CDRC.

The Tropical Metabolism Research Unit (TMRU)

The Tropical Metabolism Research Unit houses the analytical laboratory, capable of handling preparation of samples for a range of applications (e.g. HPLC, mass spectrometry, preparation of DNA ) and housing the necessary items of small equipment (e.g. pipettes, microfuges, vortex mixers, rotary and orbital mixers, small fridge/freezers). The laboratory also contain four bench-top and two floor-mounted refrigerated centrifuges, two electronic analytical balances, an electronic microbalance, two visible UV spectrophotometers, and a Thermo Scientific NanoDrop spectrophotometer, a Stuart Scientific Rotator Drive STR4 model. Two high pressure liquid chromatographs equipped with auto-samplers, a Perkin-Elmer gas chromatography/mass spectrometer, a Kjeltec 8400 nitrogen analyser, a Shimadzu fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and an ELISA plate reader.

The laboratory has fume hood cupboards to facilitate the preparation of sterile solutions for infusion. Equipment associated with the sickle cell new born screening programme are located in this laboratory and include a BioRad Variant NBS HPLC, a BioRad D-10 HPLC and a Perkin-Elmer IEF RESOLVE® testing system. The Laboratory boasts a dedicated temperature-controlled room housing twelve -70°C scientific freezers and a -20°C a walk-in refrigerated room.

The Sickle Cell Unit (SCU)

The Sickle Cell Unit (SCU) has a Pulmonary laboratory room is equipped with SpiroAir PFT System (Morgan Scientific) and a treadmill for pulmonary function testing. The second laboratory room is equipped with appropriate office furniture and used for interviews and simple clinical measurements. The third laboratory room is equipped with two Sonora/Tek (NATUS) Trans Cranial Doppler (TCD) instruments for the measurement of TCD velocities. The haematology laboratory has an Abbot Cell Dyn Haematology analyser, a Laser assisted optical rotational cell analyser (LoRRca), a double head Leica microscope for teaching and diagnostics purposes, a haematocrit and centrifuge.

The Edmund Cohen Vascular Research Laboratory

The Edmund Cohen Vascular Research laboratory occupies 320 sq. ft. at the Chronic Disease Research Centre. In its current state, the container lab is equipped with equipment carry out many different biological research procedures. For cell culture cell differentiation and cell separation there are MACS separators (Miltenyi), refrigerated Benchtop centrifuges (Eppendorf and Heraeus), CO2 incubator (Cole-Parmer), System and Inverted light microscopes (Leica), and a Pointcare Haematology analyser.

There is equipment for routine clinical testing such as the Roche Reflotron analyser, Bayer DCA2000+ analyser and the Smartlyte electrolyte analyser. Genetic and molecular analysis is possible using the MWG Biotech Thermocycler, Quansys Q-View Multiplex Imager, Dynex Microplate reader. There is also equipment for monitoring vascular endothelial function and arterial health (EndoPAT 2000 - Itamar medical) and novel prototype equipment, Whitland Research RM 200 Lightguide Spctrophotometer, for non-invasively measuring tissue Oxygen Saturation.