RESEARCH LABORATORY INFRASTRUCTURE OF FACULTY MEMBERS
The research infrastructure of the PPGBI is distributed across 18 laboratories coordinated by permanent faculty members—many of them shared by more than one researcher—and
7 laboratories of collaborating faculty members, located in other departments at ICB/UFMG and at Fiocruz/MG. Additionally, it includes experimental animal facilities and several multi-user laboratories.
The Department of Biochemistry and Immunology has 4 multi-user laboratories (Genomics Laboratory, Multi-user Equipment Laboratory, Water Room, and the BSL-2 Laboratory), and the
ICB hosts five laboratories that are part of the Multi-user Laboratory Center, CELAM (Proteomics, Flow Cytometry, Genomics, Informatics, and the Image Acquisition and Processing Center—CAPI), in addition to a BSL-3 Laboratory
Also available to PPGBI members, through collaborative projects or service provision, are the Electron Microscopy Center (see more at
https://www.microscopia.ufmg.br/), the Vaccine
Technology Center (see more at
https://www.ctvacinas.ufmg.br), and the Central Animal Facility (see more at
https://www.ufmg.br/prpq/bioterio/).
Individual laboratories are equipped with dozens of instruments, including refrigerated centrifuges, incubators, biological safety cabinets, chromatographs, conventional and real-time PCR
machines, isothermal titration microcalorimeters (VP-ITC microcal), differential scanning microcalorimeters (VP-DSC microcal), -80°C freezers, ELISA readers, cell harvesters, fermenters,
Emulsiflex cell disruption systems, and equipment for DNA, RNA, and protein electrophoresis.
The various animal facilities include racks for housing mice under SPF (Specific Pathogen-Free) conditions and genetically modified mouse strains. Germ-free isolators are also installed in
one of the department's animal facilities.
MULTI-USER LABORATORY INFRASTRUCTURE
The multi-user laboratories of the Department of Biochemistry and Immunology are equipped with two peptide synthesizers (Shimadzu and Intavis Bioanalytical Instruments), a peptide
sequencer (Protein Sequence PPSQ-21A, Shimadzu), real-time PCR machines (Applied Biosystems and Bio-Rad), a Synergy2 fluorimeter, a Surface Plasmon Resonance system (Biacore X),
a fluorescence microscope (Invitrogen EVOS Imaging Systems), two protein purification chromatographs (Akta Explorer and Ettan LC, Amersham Biosciences), an ultracentrifuge, a gamma radioactivity counter (Shimadzu), a nucleic acid and protein analyzer (Bioanalyzer, Agilent), a capillary DNA sequencer (Sanger 3700 ABI), and two additional real-time PCR machines (ABI and Bio-Rad).
In the shared-use BSL-2 laboratory, there are two biological safety cabinets, incubators, centrifuges, and a cell electroporator (Amaxa Nucleofector). The so-called “Water Room”
houses equipment for the supply of deionized water and high-purity Milli-Q water, along with two autoclaves. The PPGBI also has a cold room of approximately 20 m² with temperature control between 4°C and 8°C.
At the Imaging Acquisition and Processing Center (CAPI) of ICB, there are three Zeiss confocal microscopes (510 META, 880, and 5 LIVE)
and two fluorescence microscopes (Nikon Eclipse and Zeiss Apotome). In addition, the facility offers a laser microdissection system, a
digital microscope (slide scanner) for digitizing histological slides, a gel analysis system (Typhoon FLA 9000, GE), and a fluorometric
and microscopy reader (Cytation 5 Cell, Biotek). (see more at https://www2.icb.ufmg.br/capi/)
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As part of the Center for Multiuser Laboratories (CELAM) at ICB, the Flow Cytometry Laboratory houses a FACScan cell sorter Excalibur (Becton Dickinson)
and a FACScan flow cytometer (Becton Dickinson). The Proteomics Laboratory is equipped with three HPLC chromatographs (Shimatzu and GE), one spectropolarimeter (JASCO),
one MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer (Bruker), and one XEVO mass spectrometer (Waters). The Multiuser Genomics Laboratory contains two next-generation sequencers from Illumina—the
NextSeq1000 and the MiSeq—along with the Ion-PGM (Personal Genome Machine, Life Technologies) and a Bioruptor-Diagenode for nucleic acid fragmentation.
Among all the laboratories that are part of CELAM at ICB, the Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory (BSL-3) has certified infrastructure for handling high-containment pathogens,
including an animal facility with a central air filtration system and additional access control and biosafety devices.
Also part of the CELAM-ICB infrastructure, the PPGBI has access to the High-Performance Computing Center, which houses the Sagarana system—a computing cluster composed
of servers with 64 or 256 cores and 512 or 2048 GB of memory, with storage units exceeding 250 TB. For more information, see:
https://sites.icb.ufmg.br/celam/.
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The BSL-3 Laboratory at ICB is certified by the National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) and complies with all biosafety regulations
established by this agency. It includes two laboratories for sample handling, a washing and sterilization room, and an animal facility.
The entire area is equipped with automated systems that maintain negative internal air pressure to ensure biosafety.
As part of CELAM, the BSL-3-ICB Laboratory is open for use by the entire ICB and UFMG community, as well as other national research institutions, through a scheduling system.
For more information, see: https://sites.icb.ufmg.br/celam/biosseguranca/sobre/
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The Central Animal Facility at UFMG, which is under the authority of the Central Administration (Office of the Vice President for Research),
is dedicated to the breeding of isogenic and heterogenic rats and mice with health certification provided by the Laboratory for Genetic and
Health Quality Control of Animals at the School of Medicine, University of São Paulo (USP). (See more at https://www.ufmg.br/prpq/bioterio/)
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