The Rainey Lab

Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada

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RESEARCH IN THE RAINEY LAB

A detailed description is available here.

FACILITIES - links are to photos

NMR spectroscopy: We make extensive use of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Research Resource conveniently located a few hundred meters away in Dal's Chemistry building (500 MHz liquids; 700 MHz solids) and brand new 700 MHz liquids spectrometer with cryo-probes at the NRC-IMB here in Halifax. We also employ high-field magnets at centres such as NANUC in Edmonton or the Québec/Eastern Canada High Field NMR Facility in Montréal with 800 MHz spectrometers when needed.

Thanks to Bruker, we have a triple-resonance (15N,13C,1H + 31P) electric field minimized biomolecular solid-state NMR probe for bicelle or bilayer samples at 700 MHz.

We also have a workshop in the laboratory allowing us to do things like customize solid-state NMR probes.

Scanning probe microscopy: We have a beautiful JPK Nanowizard II Ultra capable of operation in a resolution-optimized standalone mode with top-view optics or on a Zeiss inverted optical microscope with Colibri fluorescence light source for maximal flexibility in correlation to phase contrast or fluorescence microscopy. These are located in a newly renovated low vibration sub-basement facility, all thanks to CFI and the Nova Scotia Research & Innovation Trust.

Fluorescence spectroscopy: A PTI QuantaMaster 4 spectrofluorometer (angle 2, angle 3)with steady-state anisotropy measurement, stopped-flow and planar-supported sample analysis capabilities arrived in late 2008, thanks to NSERC. Thanks to Peter Murphy for the photos!

CD spectroscopy: We have our choice of two Jasco J-810's, thanks to Drs. Bearne and Waisman.

Mass spectrometry: We use ESI mass spectrometers thanks to Drs. Byers and Jakeman and a MALDI-TOF MS at the NRC-IMB.

Sample preparation: We have an AAPPTec Endeavor-90 automated peptide synthesizer used to produce peptides by solid-phase peptide syntheis. Peptides produced in this way and proteins produced by molecular biology methods can be purified with 1 of our 3 binary pump HPLC systems: a Varian Prostar with diode array detector and fraction collector (thanks to NSERC!) or 1 of 2 Beckman System Gold instruments with UV/Vis dual or single wavelength detector capability.

Planar supported bilayer samples can be prepared using our Nima Langmuir-Blodgett trough (note HP diode array UV/Vis spectrophotometer in the background.)

FUNDING

We are grateful for funding and support from:



	Dalhousie Cancer Research Program

Last Update: December 2 2010