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Research Facilities
Chemistry's facilities and resources reflect the Department's commitment to research. Three connected buildings house the Chemistry Department's classrooms, research labs, and faculty offices. The newest building, completed in 1988, is among the largest chemistry centers built in the United States in the last two decades. The upper three floors of this Dow Laboratory building are devoted to research. Two floors contain 46 research modules, each with adjoining instrument rooms. One floor houses custom-designed space for physical and analytical chemists. Specialized facilities in the building include several cold rooms, a -20 C freezer room, incubation rooms, autoclaves, a hydrogenation facility, and a polymer characterization laboratory. In the center of the new building, an atrium with trees, flowers, and a skylight roof create an inviting environment to work and study.
RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION. Advanced instrumentation is an essential component of Departmental
research. The Department and individual research groups collectively maintain
a multi-million dollar inventory of state-of-the-art hardware and software
that is constantly being updated. Major Departmental equipment available
to research faculty and students include the following: a Varian UnityINOVA
800MHz The Chemistry Department computational resources are centered around four computers: a Silicon Graphics Octane, an 8-processor Silicon Graphics 4D/380 GTXB, an IBM RS/6000-550, and a Silicon Graphics 12-processor Power-Challenge supercomputer shared between investigators in Chemistry and the Biophysics Research Division. The Department also has a 4-processor Silicon Graphics high performance server for 3D molecular graphics. This computer is housed in special Visualization Laboratory with projection screen capability in stereo. Individual research groups own and operate several dozen other UNIX workstations, plus some 200 personal computers. In addition, the University of Michigan is a member of an academic consortium associated with the San Diego Supercomputer Center, providing access to a Cray C90. Finally, researchers in the Department can take advantage of the Advanced Computer Architecture Laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, a world-renowned research facility whose focus includes developing applications for their advanced computer systems, including a 16-node Silicon Graphics Power-Challenger, a 32-node Convex SPP-1000 and a 48-node IBM SP2. As Michigan plays a major role in developing the Internet, communication between the more than 25,000 computers on campus and those throughout the world is fast and efficient. As one of the largest public research institutions in the United States, the University of Michigan sponsors a large number of specialized centers of research and campus-wide research facilities. Two centers that many members of the Chemistry Department frequently use or belong to are the Biomedical Research Core Facilities (BRCF) and the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS). The BRCF provides state-of-the art instrumentation and services to assist in all types of biochemical and biomedical research projects. Services performed by the BRCF staff scientists include: peptide and nucleic acid synthesis; N-terminal protein sequencing and amino acid analysis; automated DNA sequencing; carbohydrate analysis; laser de-sorbtion and electrospray mass spectrometry; flow cytometry; monoclonal antibody production; transgenic mouse production; and a vector design service. The CUOS, established by the National Science Foundation in 1991, is this Nation's foremost center for conducting research on the production and utilization of ultrashort optical pulses. Applications of these femtosecond pulses in chemistry include studies of the photochemistry and photophysics of chemical and biological systems with time resolution comparable to the time scale for nuclear motion; coherent control of molecular systems using pulses with sculptured phase and amplitude profiles; and optical imaging using near-field scanning optical microscopy. Research is also underway into the production of ultrashort X-ray pulses that will allow real-time structural studies of molecules undergoing reaction. Chemistry students have access to one of the finest and most complete library systems in the country. In fact, Michigan houses the eighth largest university library collection in the United States. A fully-integrated Science Library includes all major titles in organic, inorganic, analytical, physical, materials, and biochemistry, and the nearby medical and engineering libraries provide a host of other technical resources. Libraries are open seven days a week and offer on-line search and retrieval capabilities from any networked computer.
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Chemistry Department,
College of LS&A, University of Michigan |
NMR
(housed in the chemistry complex and shared with the Biophysics Research
Division), a Bruker AMX 500 MHz NMR, a Varian UnityINOVA 500 MHz NMR,
a Varian UnityINOVA 400 MHz NMR, a Bruker AM 360 MHz NMR, a Bruker DSX
300 MHz Solid State NMR, a Varian Mercury 300 MHz NMR, and a Bruker AC
200 MHz NMR, Differential Scanning and Isothermal Titration Calorimeters.
Also available are a superconducting quantum interference detecting (SQUID)
magnetometer; two Bruker ESR spectrometers including a Bruker EMX with
X-band and Q-band capability; two X-ray diffractometers with SGI workstations
for data analysis; two magnetic sector mass spectrometers (VG Micromass)
capable of EI, CI or FAB high resolution exact mass measurements; a Finnigan
gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer; two FT-IR spectrometers; an AVIV
circular dichroism spectrometer; a Shimadzu UV-VIS spectrophotometer;
a Perkin-Elmer thermogravimetric analyzer and differential scanning calorimeter;
an ISA-Spex spectroflurometer; fixed wavelength and tunable lasers; scanning
and transmission electron microscopes; a phosphorimager; scintillation
counting apparatus; ultra-centrifuges; and automated peptide, DNA, and
RNA synthesis facilities. The Department maintains in-house services for
mass spectrometry, CHN analysis, atomic absorption analysis, and X-ray
crystallography. The Department also maintains on-premise glassblowing,
machine, and electronics shops to repair and fabricate scientific apparatus
that are not available commercially.