OUR RESEARCH MISSION
AFRRI's research efforts focus on the following aims:
- Develop methods of rapidly assessing radiation exposure to assure appropriate medical treatment.
- Pursue new drugs that will prevent the life-threatening and health-degrading effects of ionizing radiation and move those drugs from discovery through the Food and Drug Administration approval process.
- Investigate the effects of radiation injury combined with other challenges such as trauma, disease, and chemical exposures.
- Contribute to the knowledge base that is useful in understanding, for example, the effects of space radiation on astronauts.
LABoRATORIES
The AFRRI laboratories comprise facilities totaling 200,000 sq ft. AFRRI is a fully equipped research facility with the capability of performing state of the art molecular, cellular, microbiology, genetic and biochemical research. All equipment is well maintained and under maintenance contract.
Cellular/Molecular Laboratory: Used for the manipulation and analysis of biological samples. The laboratory is equipped with cell culture incubators, laminar flow hoods, microwaves, refrigerators, -80°C and -20°C freezers, micro-weight scales, pH meters, electrophoresis stations, HPLC equipment, thermo cyclers, iQ5, Experion, Millipore pure water systems, DNA synthesizers, DNA sequencers, spectrophotometers, micro-centrifuges, liquid nitrogen storage, electroporator, vacuum transfer systems, laminar flow hoods, light microscopes, inverted microscopes, CO2 incubators, a Coulter Particle Counter, slide stainer, cytospin, luminometers, Western blot imagers, sonicators, plate readers, plate washers, chemical hoods, flammable cabinets, acid solvent cabinets, wash stations and water baths.
Cytogenetic Laboratory: Used for Cytogenetic Biodosimetry analyses is equipped with TECAN Evo 200, HANABHI Harvester PII & PIII, HANABI Spreader, Auto Stainer& Auto Image capture digital microscope and LIMS.
Microbiology Laboratory: Used for the manipulation of pathogenic microorganisms. It is equipped with laminar flow hoods, refrigerators, CO2 incubators, water baths, a Vitek analyzer for bacterial identification, spectrophotometers, traditional bacterial culture equipment, and flammable cabinets.
Instrumentation Laboratories: Equipped with an autoclave, TaqMan real-time PCR, FACScan, FACSCalibur, luminometer, spectrophotometer, densitometer, Luminex 100 and BioRobot 8000.
The Biomedical Instrumentation Center at USU is a core facility staffed with trained personnel to assist with flow cytometry, imaging and proteomic/genomics. Equipment available includes an EPICS ELITE ESP cell sorter, EPICS XLMCL cell analyzer, Amnis ImageStream imaging flow cytometer, LSR II, Luminex 100, and confocal, fluorescence, and electron microscopes.