Facilities
Location
The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is located in the Melton Building, University of Georgia, Griffin Campus, which is a 40,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art research facility. The laboratory space has the capacity for as many as twelve active research groups in the biosafety area.
Biosafety
All biosafety activities within the facility are secured by a key card management system (B.A.S.I.S., Best Access Systems) and the entire facility has a backup emergency generator. Centralized deionized and distilled water systems service all laboratories. There are seven multipurpose rooms and shared equipment within the biosafety area which are accessed by all laboratory personnel. All CFS information and scientific data is protected/backed up by a full-time on-site IT specialist.
Within the laboratories in the biosafety area, there are eight fume hoods and twelve laminar flow biosafety cabinets. More than 1000 sq. ft. of benchtop space is available for daily laboratory activities. Ten walk-in environmental chambers are available covering a -22 to 45oC range with adjustable temperatures. Stomachers, water baths, incubators, hot plates, pH meters, sonicators, ovens, imaging systems, colony counters, centrifuges, microcentrifuges, balances, refrigerators, freezers, deep freezers and spectrophotometers are housed in the laboratories and shared areas. Thermocyclers (conventional and real-time PCR), molecular biology equipment, microscopes and cell culture equipment are housed in several laboratories.
A general preparation room (1400 sq. ft.) is available housing two autoclaves (Allen-Bradley, PanelView C600) and a heavy-duty Amsco Medallion Sterilizer autoclave. It is also equipped with a Mediaclave10-Mediajet set for high volume microbiological solid media preparation.
A pilot plant (400 sq. ft.) containing various commercial-grade food processing equipment, a dark room laboratory (140 sq. ft) equipped with an Olympus BH2 Microscope and Innotech Digital Imaging System and. A Zeiss LSM 700 confocal laser scanning microscope is available in a dedicated room. Additional equipment includes one Illumina Miseq sequencer and two ultracentrifuges (Beckman).
Confocal Lab
Confocal microscopy offers several advantages over conventional optical microscopy, including controllable depth of field, the elimination of image degrading out-of-focus information, and the ability to collect serial optical sections from thick specimens.
The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Lab
The PCR laboratory for molecular biology can amplify a single copy or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence.
Next Generation Sequencing Lab
The Illumina next-generation sequencer has unprecedented throughput, scalability, and speed enables researchers to study complex genomic systems at a level never before possible.
