Biomedical Genomics Center

The Biomedical Genomics Center at the University of Minnesota is a genomics research service provider committed to advancing genomics in Minnesota, across the entire range of biomedical and biological research. The BMGC maintains and acquires state-of-the-art instrumentation and offers an array of services including sequencing, expression, genotyping, nucleic acid extraction and related support.

Research Informatics Support Systems

The goal at Research Informatics Support Systems (RISS) is to provide high-quality, service-oriented research informatics infrastructure for researchers that study complex problems or systems. The focus is the life sciences communities and the management and analysis of high-throughput molecular data, such as encountered in genomics. The staff provide technical expertise in bioinformatics, biostatistics as well as software and database development.

Biomedical Discovery District

The Biomedical Discovery District is comprised of facilities that give researchers working in a number of areas relating to human health and disease flexible, state-of-the-art space. The district, located north of TCF Stadium, is home to the Lions Research Building, McGuire Translational Research Facility, Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Winston and Maxine Wallin Medical Biosciences Building, and Cancer and Cardiovascular Research Building.

Minnesota Supercomputing Institute

The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute seeks to provide researchers at the University of Minnesota access to high-performance computing resources and user support to facilitate successful and cutting-edge research in all disciplines. Staff members have a wide range of software development experience.  The group has skills in many languages, and has developed applications for computational proteomics, image processing, molecular simulation, web-based and mobile database interfaces, parallel computing, statistics, and many other areas.

University Imaging Center

The mission of the University Imagine Center (UIC) is to enhance basic research by providing access to state-of-the-art microscopy and imaging equipment, as well as experienced staff. The UIC cores serve internal and external research clients in the design of imaging experiments, choice of and training on suitable imaging systems. The UIC provides multiple advanced imaging systems, including macro spectral confocal microscopy; wide-field light and fluorescence microscopy; spinning disk and laser scanning confocal microscopes; multi-photon and total internal reflectance microscopes. The UIC is expanding in the areas of live-cell / live-animal imaging (intravital) and super resolution microscopy.

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research

The Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) is an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary research laboratory that provides state-of-the-art instrumentation, expertise, and infrastructure to carry out biomedical research utilizing the unique capabilities provided by high field MRI and MRS methodology. The central aim of the research conducted in CMRR is to non-invasively obtain functional, physiological, and biochemical information in intact biological systems, and use this capability to probe biological processes in health and disease.

Center for Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics

The Center for Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics facility provides support, equipment, and expertise for analyzing complex protein mixtures. Mass spectrometric data can provide intact protein molecular weight as well as protein identification by peptide mass fingerprint or MS/MS data, combined with protein database searching. In addition, mass spectrometers are available to provide accurate mass measurement for organic molecules and relative protein quantification via isotope labeling techniques (e.g., iTRAQ™).The center also has equipment to help with complex protein separation and differential expression of protein between two samples. The facility has the capability of traditional 2D SDS-PAGE, DIGE, PF (2D liquid chromatofocusing) and high throughput spot picking, digestion, and desalting.

Biophysical Technology Center

The Biophysical Technology Center makes state-of-the-art instrumental resources for optical spectroscopy and EPR available to researchers. The top priorities of the center personnel are to maintain the performance of these instruments at the highest level and to provide basic training to new users. Resident expertise in the center is available to facilitate spectroscopy efforts and contribute to the scientific research efforts of users in the development of strategies for data collection and analysis.

Minnesota NMR Center

The Minnesota NMR Center is a core resource whose mission is to make state-of-the-art NMR instruments available to researchers, providing a venue for them to pursue their projects and develop their experience in NMR methods. The center is home to eight superconducting magnets ranging in field strength from 600MHz to 900MHz. The instruments are equipped with a full range of probes for solution and solid-state NMR.

Characterization Facility

The Characterization Facility ("CharFac") is a multi-user, shared instrumentation facility for materials research spanning from nanotechnology to biology and medicine. The analytical capabilities include microscopy via electron beams, force probes and visible light, including cryogenic methods; elemental and chemical imaging including depth profiling; elemental, chemical and mass spectrometry; atomic and molecular structure analysis via X-ray, ion or electron scattering; nanomechanical and nanotribological probes; and other tools for surface and thin-film metrology.

Nanofabrication Center

The Nanofabrication Center, or NFC, is a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the design, fabrication, and testing of small scale devices.  We offer tools and expertise to help researchers develop new micro- and nanoscale technologies, such as integrated circuits, microsensors, thin film coatings, micro-optical systems, and nanostructured materials.

BioCoR Specimen Preservation

The mission of BioCoR is to advance the science, technology and practice of biospecimen preservation by developing specific biopreservation protocols, improve preservation and storage technologies, establish standards and guidelines and to train individuals and institutions in the science and technology of biopreservation.

Institute for Therapeutics- High Throughput Screening

Our goal is to promote research and education in the area of drug discovery and development. The Institute provides scientific services to advance research and therapeutics. We have a diversified collection of over 225,000 small molecules available for screening, including selected focused libraries of pharmacologically active molecules, and a library of peptides/peptidomimetics. We continue to add to our collection from commercial sources and from in-house chemical synthesis. Detection capability includes most common read modes for fluorescence and absorbance plus high content imaging, microfluidic assays and multiplexed chemiluminescence ELISA assays.