Burrell College has expanded its research laboratories with new equipment and improvements to the facilities. These updates and additions will benefit students and faculty in their research efforts and increase the college’s capacity for research. The new additions are an investment provided by the Research Office so that collegiate researchers can focus their individual research funds directly on items needed to aid in their particular research.
Updates to the facility include a BioPlex 200 and wash station, new biohazard freezer/fridge, mini centrifuges, pipettors at every workstation, bottle filler, new reverse osmosis supply lines, new cameras, washer/dryer combo, Alere Cholestech LDX Analyzer, Tanita body composition monitor, Lactate Analyzer, new flooring, new picnic tables, and even outdoor grills.
The Research Laboratories are located at the site of the Southwest Research and Production Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Laboratories comprise 5,400 square feet of research space which includes the open-format BioScience Research Lab, Human Physiology Lab, and associated office space. These brand-new additions to the Research Laboratories will increase the technical abilities of the lab to expand the forms of data Burrell’s laboratory researchers can collect. It will also increase the extent of studies that can be safely conducted in the Burrell Research Laboratories, which will expand opportunities for students to come into contact with diverse technologies and types of measurements applicable to human health and disease.
Dr. Michael Woods, Associate Professor of Physiology and Pathology, Pathology & Director of Research Laboratoriesanticipates many benefits to the upgraded Research Laboratories. “We hope that our investments will benefit all of our laboratory investigators, whether they are studying inflammation, cancer, diabetes, or something else,” says Dr. Woods. “While we look for opportunities to assist individual investigators in their particular needs, our capital equipment purchases should be broadly applicable to the Burrell research community.”
The additions to the Research Laboratories have been highly anticipated. “Personally, I am most excited about the addition of the Bio-Plex 200 System from Bio-Rad,” says Dr. Woods. “This is a multiplexed immunoassay system, which means that it is capable of simultaneously measuring the concentration of numerous different biological targets in very small volumes of human serum or cell culture supernatant.” The Bio-Plex 200 System is extremely user-friendly and can produce a large quantity of high-quality data in a short span of time. This will mean the researchers of Burrell College can generate large amounts of data with ease in the study of various things including inflammation, cancer cell biology, and diabetes. It is also a much lower cost and shorter time investment compared to more traditional techniques.
The upgrades to the Laboratories were based on faculty input on which technologies would most benefit their research exploits. The ultimate goal of the Laboratory additions was to add technologies that would benefit the most people and the broadest lines of research possible. Although Burrell’s research program is relatively young, it yields dedicated faculty and motivated students who produce thoughtful scientific questions with meaningful research hypotheses. The Research Laboratories wanted those faculty members and students to have access to the tools necessary to begin answering those questions.
The Research Office would like to extend special thanks to Dr. Benoit for his continued support, advocacy, and investment in research opportunities for our faculty and students. Without his guidance, Burrell College would not have access to the capabilities currently in place and would not be able to create opportunities such as these for Burrell students.
