Biological Science
The Center for Research in Nanosciences and Nanotechnology has established facilities to facilitate the researchers in biological sciences by providing instrumentation capability and by developing technical capability through training education and by conducting seminar/workshops. A full functional facility for cell culture to accommodate multiple users and a cytomtry facility comprising of flow cytometry instruments and high content imaging instrument to complete the cellular analysis of multiple physiological status.
Animal Cell culture facility
A state of the art cell culture facility at center has been providing instrument facility to researchers for culture of primary cells of murine origin and cell lines of murine and human origin. The instruments available are as follows:
| SL. NO. | DESCRIPTION |
| 1 | Laminar flow cabinets: 3 |
| 2 | Centrifuges: 2 Nos (Beckman Coulter) |
| 3 | CO2 incubators: 2 Nos (Thermo Hera Cell) |
The cell culture facility comprises of specialized partitioned Chambers for the Laminar Flow Hoods and CO2 Incubators. There is an ante room at the entrance of the facility to contain dust to maintain the sterility of the facility. Each compartments of the facility are also provided with Ultra Violet lamps for decontamination. The current users are from different departments of the university like Physiology, Genetics, Biochemistry, Home science etc. The facility has also been utilized for workshops at the center such as Indo US workshop on cytometry in October 2012 and Nanobiotechnology workshop conducted in August 2012 for cell culture. As a major initiative the center will conduct hands on training programme in animal cell culture in specialized assay for in depth analysis of cells.
CU BD CoE for Nanobiotechnology
The CU BD CoE for Nanobiotechnology was inaugurated in the month of January 2011, with a mandate for capability building in the academics and research domain pertaining to the cytometry instrumentation and applications. Apart from the training and workshop the center caters services in cytometric data acquisition and consultancy services with respect to data analysis and experiment design/ validation.
The center started with three instruments viz. BD FACSAria III, BD Influx and a highcontent Imaging platform BD Pathway855 and later a BD FACSVerse instrument was added to the center to cope with the increasing user base. Currently more than 150 researchers from about 70 laboratories and from 14 different institutes across India are being benefited from the services of the center. Till date the center has conducted 30 hands-on training courses of 3-4 days duration for PhD students and scientists which includes Basic training on instrument operation and technology, the courses also includes advanced level training on cell sorting, Nanobiotechnology and High content imaging. More than 80 students were covered under the hands-on training programmes.
The center further organized two national level workshops of 7 days duration on applications of flow cytometry and imaging for college/ University faculties where 55 faculty members were trained on this technology. One international workshop of 7 day duration was organized in the month of august 2012 where 30 faculty members were trained on this technology. Workshop faculties in these workshops were invited from different institutes across the country and abroad.
The Indo US cytometry workshop was jointly organized by University of Calcutta and IPGMER Kolkata during the month of October 2012, where 65 PhD scholars, Clinicians and researchers across the country participated. The Facility is managed by highly skilled expert of the field from the manufacturers. Assistance on experiment design, data acquisition and analysis is also available at the center.
BD FACSVerse
| TITLE | DESCRIPTION |
| BD FACSVerse | An analyzer equipped with 3 lasers and can detect up to 2 scatter parameters and 8 fluorescence parameters. |
| Blue laser | Wavelength 488 nm, 20mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Forward Scatter, Side scatter and 4 fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 527/32, 586/42, 700/54 and 783/56. |
| Red laser | Wavelength 640 nm, 40mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 660/10 and 783/56. |
| Violet laser | Wavelength 405 nm, 40mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 448/45 and 528/45. |
| Sample loading tube | Samples can be acquired from 5ml tubes and 2ml and 1.5 ml microfuge tubes |
BD FACSAria III
| TITLE | DESCRIPTION |
| BD FACSAria III | A user friendly fixed alignment high speed flow cytometer sorter with three lasers and capable of detecting two scatter and nine fluorescence parameters. |
| Blue laser | Wavelength 488 nm, 20mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Forward Scatter, Side scatter and Five fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 530/30, 585/42, 616/23, 695/40 and 780/60. |
| Red laser | Wavelength 633 nm, 18mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 660/20 and 780/60. |
| Near UV laser | Wavelength 375 nm, 7mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 450/40 and 510/50 |
| Sample loading tube | Samples can be acquired from 5ml tubes and 15ml conical tubes. |
| Samples can be sorted different kind of collection devices such as 5ml tubes, 15 ml tubes and multi well culture plates. | |
BD Influx
| TITLE | DESCRIPTION |
| BD Influx | A high-end Stream in air sorter with 5 lasers and can detect upto 16 parameters including three scatter parameters. This instrument can also be configured for polarization detection from cells and particles or for spectral analysis. |
| Blue laser | Wavelength 488 nm, 200mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Forward Scatter (Perp.), Forward Scatter (Par.) Side scatter and two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 530/40 and 692/40. |
| Red laser | Wavelength 642 nm, 50mW |
| Detectable Parameters | Three fluorescence parameters with emission collection filters 670/30, 720/40 and 750LP. |
| Violet laser | Wavelength 405 nm, 50mW |
| Detectable Parameters | two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 460/50 and 520/35. |
| UV laser | Wavelength 355 nm, 100mW |
| Detectable Parameters | two fluorescence parameters with emission collection band pass filters 406/15 and 530/40 |
| Yellow Green Laser | Wave lengh 561 nm. 50 mw |
| Detectable Parameter | Four fluorescence Parameter with four emission collection land pass filters 585/29, 610/20, 670/30 and 750 LP |
| Sample loading tube | Samples can be acquired from 5ml polypropylene tubes only. |
| Samples can be sorted different kind of collection devices such as 5ml tubes, 15 ml tubes and multi well culture plates. | |
BD Pathway 855
BD Pathway 855 systems provide fluorescence intensity measurements and temporal and morphological imaging, including subcellular imaging to detect cellular events. Cellular images can be captured in either confocal or wide field mode to deliver precision images for subsequent analysis. The system is equipped with liquid handling system and an on stage environment control system for study of live cell kinetics. Sample illumination is achieved using dual metal halide lamps for fluorescence and LED for transmitted brightfield imaging. The motionless stage can accommodate samples in 96/ 384 well format or with standard slide. The imaging with most of the commercially available fluorochrome stained sample is possible with 12 excitation filters, 5 dichroic mirrors and 6 emission filters. The images can be acquired and viewed with an OCRA 12 bit cooled CCD camera, with high QE, effective pixels 1344 x 1024, pixel size 6.45 x 6.45 μm. The Image acquisition and analysis is performed with advanced Attovision Software.
