The Busschaert Group Facilities

 

Busschaert Group Lab Space

Organic Synthesis Lab
600 sq. ft., renovated 2018
Equipped with 4 chemical fume hoods
Contains all standard organic synthesis equipment (stirring hotplates, rotary evaporators, high vacuum pumps, drying oven, ultrasound baths, fridges, freezers, analytical balances, glassware, flammable cabinets and reagents). The group also has an older 400 sq. ft. organic synthesis lab equipped with 2 additional fume hoods and a LC/MS system

Microbiology Lab
100 sq. ft., updated 2019
BSL-2 approved
Equipped with stainless steel counter tops, a shaking incubator (VWR), a centrifuge (Eppendorf), a camera (Canon EOS M100) and a plate reader/microscope (BioTek Cytation 5).

Instrument Room
200 sq. ft., updated 2019
Contains liposome preparation equipment (Avanti), UV-Vis spectrometer (Agilent Cary 100), fluorometer (Agilent Cary Eclipse), SPR (Nicoya OpenSPR) and PAMPA kit (Pion Gut-Box).

Student Office Area
200 sq. ft., renovated 2018
Contains seating for 6-7 students or postdocs, a printer and a shared computer

 

Busschaert Group Instruments

Centrifuge
Eppendorf Centrifuge 5810
Capable of centrifuging 1.5 mL to 750 mL flasks and 96-well plates

Fluorometer
Agilent Technologies Cary Eclipse Fluorescence Spectrophotometer
Equipped with temperature controller and multi-cell holder with magnetic stirring

Incubator
VWR 1585 Shaking Incubator (floor model)

LC/MS System
Thermo Scientific Vanquish Flex UHPLC Systems, with a Thermo Scientific ISQ EC Single Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (ESI ionization)

Liposome Preparation
Avanti Mini Extruder for the preparation of LUV
We also have various sizes of membranes and sephadex columns

Lyophilizer
Labconco FreeZone 2.5 Liter Benchtop Freeze Dry System

PAMPA kit
We have all components for PAMPA assays, including 96-well donor and acceptor plates, and the Pion Gut-Box.

Plate Reader and Imager
BioTek Cytation 5 Imaging Reader
Plate reader equipped with brightfield, phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy capabilities (objectives 1.25x, 4x, 10x, 40x and 60x) 

Surface Plasmon Resonance
Nicoya OpenSPR
We have many LIP and MEM sensors to measure binding to lipids

UV-Vis Spectrophotometers
Agilent Technologies Cary 100 UV-Vis spectrophotometers
Equipped with temperature controller and multi-cell holder for 12 cuvettes

 

 

Departmental Facilities

The Department of Chemistry at Tulane University houses a number of instruments available to chemistry faculty. A full list of the available equipment can be found on the departmental website. The most important departmental instruments for the Busschaert group are:

  • ESI-TOF Mass Spectrometer (Mass Spec)
  • Varian Saturn 2100 GC/MS System (Mass Spec)
  • Varian Unity Inova 400 (NMR)
  • Bruker Avance 300 (NMR)
  • Bruker APEX diffractometer (single crystal X-ray crystallography)
  • Enraf-Nonius CAD4 diffractometer (single crystal X-ray crystallography)
  • Nexus 670 Avatar FTIR Spectrometer (IR spectroscopy)

 

Other Tulane Facilities 

The Tulane Howard-Tilton Memorial Library holds a significant collection of chemistry related journals and books, which are available for students and faculty (hard copy or online).

Tulane University also operates a Tulane Instrumentation for Nanoscience & Innovation (TINI), which provides easy access to sophisticated research equipment, applications support for research instrumentation, and service support for scientific instruments. The TINI laboratory personnel maintain the equipment and assist researchers with method development and data collection. They also train students and researchers in the use of the shared equipment. The most relevant instruments for the Busschaert group include:

  • Nikon A1 confocal microscope
  • Bruker 500 MHz NMR
  • Fisons EA112 Elemental Analyzer
  • Biacore T200 GE Healthcare Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) Spectrometer