Facilities

The Institute for Cardiovascular Research maintains five core facilities for use by institute staff, members of the SUNY Upstate community and investigators at outside research institutions.

Computers

The ICR's computer core functions as a general parallel computing resource in cardiac electrophysiology and molecular modeling. In addition, it provides technical support and leads software development efforts supporting the research conducted in the projects.

Computer and mathematical experts at the ICR develop and operate highly sophisticated mathematical models of complex biological systems. Such models require a highly specialized computer system and management.

The ICR owns three Parallel computers for large-scale simulations, a SUN E6500 with 30 processors and 10 GB Ram and two Microway PC clusters each with 16-nodes, 32 processors.

A wide range of state-of-the-art computational equipment and software also is available to investigators. These include a high-resolution graphic station, a Sun Blade 100 equipped with the creator 3D graphic board, 10 UNIX based work stations, Sun Ultra-10 with a minimum of 128 MB RAM, 8GB disk space, two SUN A5100 storage arrays with a combined storage capacity of 500 GB, interconnected to the SUN server and graphic station with fiber optics. Overall 58 PCs, 2 Macs, 6 printers, 3 scanners and a film scanner are interconnected to the main UNIX segment of the network with a high degree of interconnectivity. In addition to applications under development, the ICR supports 22 software packages on PCs, nine on Macs, and 26 packages on UNIX.

Molecular Biology

The Molecular Biology core is responsible for the analysis of the expression of cardiac genes and includes the growth and purification of DNA, as well as site-specific mutagenesis, production of cRNA, checking of the cRNA in in vitro translation assays, DNA sequencing of mutagenized genes and cDNAs; preparation and microinjection of frog oocytes; and expression of proteins by transfection into mammalian cells in culture. The Molecular Biology laboratory is fully equipped to conduct cloning of membrane channels, Western blotting, immunolocalization, production of antisense oligonucleotides, adenoviral constructs and dominant negative constructs. Other procedures of molecular biology such as RNAase Protection Assay, site-directed mutagenesis, PCR and in vitro transcription are performed in this lab.

Proteomics

The Proteomics core is being expanded. This facility is already fully equipped to study protein-protein interactions and secondary structures as well as molecular modeling. ICR members participate in the Structural Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics (SB3) doctoral degree program offered jointly by SUNY Upstate, Syracuse University and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. ICR members have access to mass spectrometry and crystallography equipment available through that program.

Imaging

The Imaging core provides the necessary expertise, facilities and support to perform light microscopy, immunofluorescent microscopy and any other specialized morphological, pathological and immunohistochemical support required. In addition, the Imaging core supports the development of new technology used for the study of electrical wave propagation in three-dimensional cardiac muscle using fluorescent dyes that are sensitive to membrane electrical fields and that will be designed for this particular purpose.

Plans for the Imaging core include the purchase of a Zeiss LSM510NLO non-linear optical microscope with confocal and multi-photon imaging capabilities.

Small Animal Surgery

A state-of-the-art small animal procedure/rodent surgery room provides space for survival surgery for mice, rats and guinea pigs (species currently being used by institute investigators) and non-survival procedures for other animals.