Instrumentation Laboratories - Computational
Facilities - Molecular Life Sciences - Shops
- Library
Instrumentation Laboratories
Advanced instrumentation plays an important role in chemical research. The Department's well-equipped instrumentation facility is available for use by faculty and students alike and training is provided. Major areas of instrumentation are the Consortium of Chemical and Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance Laboratories (comprised of eight NMR spectrometers ranging from 200 to 600 MHz and one EPR spectrometer), the Center for Chemical and Biomedical Mass Spectrometry (which includes three high resolution mass spectrometers with El/CI/FAB, one quadrupole MS/MS with electrospray source, and three GC/MS instruments), the J.D. McCullough X-ray Laboratory (eight single-crystal and two powder diffractometers, several with low temperature capability), and optical spectroscopy (UV, visible, IR, and atomic absorption ).
Computer facilities permeate the department, from routine access to workstations by all students to the use of the most powerful vector and massively parallel super-computers at UCLA and around the country through the departmental network. Advanced visualization workstations are also available within the department, along with the UCLA visualization centers that house sophisticated color movie and slide making facilities. In addition to a variety of IBM, DEC, SUN, Hewlett-Packard, and SGI workstations used in research groups, the department houses several major computational centers, the Laboratories for Theoretical Physical Chemistry, Organic and Inorganic Theory and Computation, the Structural Biology Computation Center, and the facilities associated with the X-Ray Laboratory.
The molecular life sciences community at UCLA has established a number of core facilities that greatly enhance the research pursuits of the members of the Division of Biochemistry. These include oligonucleotide and peptide synthesis facilities, DNA and peptide sequencing services, and facilities for media preparation, fermentation, and tissue culture. In addition, the macromolecular structure group has world-class facilities for X-ray diffraction and multidimensional NMR analysis of DNA, RNA, and proteins.
With the assistance of our excellent departmental shops and personnel, UCLA faculty and students have designed and built equipment that has defined the state-of-the art in many fields. The Department maintains and staffs a glass shop, electrical shop, and well-stocked chemical and supplies storerooms, all open for student use.
The UCLA Library has been ranked second among all research libraries in North America by the Association of Research Libraries. This high rating - exceeded only by the library at Harvard - was based on the size and quality of the UCLA collections and excellence of professional staff. The Chemistry Library, housed in Young Hall, has 71,000 bound volumes as well as some 750 serial titles in all fields of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology. Its collections of US. chemical patents as well as UCLA chemistry theses and dissertations are extensive. The Biomedical Library in the nearby Center for Health Sciences has an exhaustive collection of books and journals pertaining to molecular life sciences.