Lab Facilities

Excellent laboratory facilities exist within our graduate program. Our facilities in Haecker Hall underwent an extensive upgrading in 1999, providing students and faculty with access to a variety of specialized equipment. These facilities can accommodate research in diverse areas, including genetic engineering, cell culture, cryopreservation of gametes and embryos, hormone assays, protein purification, in vitro fertilization, micro-manipulation and cloning of embryos, forage and fiber analysis, and in vitro fermentation and metabolism studies.

Renovated lab facilities include a radioisotope room equipped for RIA and other isotope assays, a cold room for temperature sensitive assays, a tissue culture room, multiple wet-lab bays, and two computer stations.

The dual flow continuous culture fermenter is a technologically advanced system designed to simulate the ruminal environment, enabling the study of factors affecting microbial ecology and digestion of nutrients. It is a unique and elaborate system that is found at only a few universities in the U.S. and throughout the world. One of the major advantages of this system is that animals do not have to be surgically prepared with intestinal cannulae to obtain measurements of nutrient digestion in the rumen. Although the main thrust of the continuous culture research is to improve efficiency of protein utilization by ruminants, other projects have addressed microbial metabolism of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fat, and forages.

The fermenters have been used to evaluate various components of microbial cells to determine the quantity of microbial protein synthesized in the rumen. Recently, ribosomal RNA-targeted probes were used to monitor microbial populations in the continuous culture system to evaluate the rumen microbial ecology and it was determined that our system is an excellent model for investigating various perturbations in the rumen. The fermenters have also been adapted to investigate human colonic adaptation to lactose and its effect on lactose intolerance. New equipment in Haecker Hall includes HPLC for amino acid analysis, a gas chromatograph, high speed centrifuges, elemental nitrogen analyzer, and computer work stations.

There are also research and teaching units for dairy and beef cattle, swine, sheep, and poultry. Other herds and flocks are at Research and Outreach Centers in Crookston, Grand Rapids, Morris, Rosemount, and Waseca, MN.