The Biomolecular Interactions and Conformations Facility (BICF) is an instrumentation center within the Department of Biochemistry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.

BICF provides access to state-of-the-art equipment and high quality services to researchers both on campus and beyond, tailoring experiments to meet each client's own research objectives.

BICF instruments allow for the efficient collection of biophysical data on proteins, peptides and nucleic acids.

Instrumentation

The BICF houses the following instruments to aid in protein characterization:

  • Beckman XL-I Analytical Ultracentrifuge
  • QuantStudio 3 qPCR
  • DeNovix micro-volume spectrophotometer/fluorometer
  • Jasco J-810 circular dichroism spectropolarimeter
  • MicroCal VP-DSC differential scanning calorimeter
  • TA Instruments NanoITC
  • PicoQuant FluoTime 200 fluorescence lifetime spectrometer
  • Cary UV/Vis spectrophotometer
  • Nicoya OpenSPR system
  • Wyatt Technology MiniDAWN MALS detector, linked to an AKTA Go for SEC-MALS analysis
  • Agilent 1200 HPLC
  • Coming soon: Sartorius Octet R2 System

Accessibility

There are two ways that clients can make use of the BICF core facility:

  1. Researchers, post-doctoral fellows or students may conduct their own experiments after completing the appropriate training on the instrument of interest, or
  2. The facility manager may conduct experiments on a fee-for-service basis.

University identification cards for staff, faculty and students can be programmed for individual access to MSB Rm 394 for frequent users. To arrange this, please call or email if you are interested in having access to our facility.

New Users

Please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to meet with you to discuss your planned experiments, sample preparation and address any concerns.