Shared research facilities at the Columbus Center are supported by a consortium of universities, including the University of Maryland Baltimore, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
Zebrafish/Transgenic Core Laboratory: This state-of-the-art core lab is located on the 1st floor of the Columbus Center. This facility consists of light- and temperature-controlled rooms housing adult and baby zebrafish tanks with inter-system circulating water. The facility provides investigators with access to powerful zebrafish and marine models in cross-species comparative evolutionary/developmental biology studies of interest.
Microbial Scale-up Facility: This world-class core on the 5th floor of the Columbus Center houses a 250 liter fermentor capable of culturing fastidious extremophiles as well as mesophiles and protozoan organisms at growth temperatures up to 110ºC. An additional capability exists for growth of mesophiles grown under hypersaline conditions. The microbial scale-up facility can accommodate a full range of genome-enabled growth and physiology studies on both archaeal and bacterial model organisms and protozoa expressing proteins of medical interest. The production of heat shock proteins from Archaea, primitive cells that provide simple models for many complex molecular functions in higher Eukaryotes, is an example of activities of this Facility.
BioAnalytical Services Lab: The BASLab is located on the 3rd floor of the Columbus Center and assists research in the program by providing DNA sequencing, Q-PCR, Fluorescence scanner, and other analytical instrumentation for molecular and cellular studies.
Additional high-throughput DNA sequencing and proteomic facilities are available through the Institute for Genomic Sciences and the Greenebaum Cancer.