Facilities
The McKay Laboratory of Orthopaedic Surgery Research occupies over 10,000 square feet on the fourth floor of Stemmler Hall at the University of Pennsylvania. The functional units and capabilities are:SPECIMEN PREPARATION: This operating room-style facility is equipped to accommodate multiple procedures simultaneously, adjustable tracked operating room lights with variable light intensities, and two hydraulic stainless steel operating tables. This room contains a wide range of surgical instruments and specialty power tools such as arthroscopy equipment, air drills, surgitomes, and oscillators which are fully sterilizable for use in animal surgery and 'clean' dissections. In addition, a 3-foot Envirco laminar flow tabletop clean bench is available for sterile dissection and cell and tissue isolation. Sterilizing equipment for preparation of instrument packs and surgical clothing are on hand. In addition, an array of refrigerators and freezers are available for tissue storage.
BIOENGINEERING: This is an electrically shielded laboratory with a triple-walled, inertial-slabbed equipment room. It is fully equipped for routine and sophisticated materials testing. The primary instrumentation consists of an Instron 8874 Biaxial Servo-hydraulic Testing Machine, an Instron 5543 Electromechanical Testing Machine, two Instron 5542 Electromechanical Testing Machines, two Instron 5848 Electromechanical MicroTesters, and an MTS Servo-hydraulic Materials Testing Machine. These machines are custom fit with software for test control and data acquisition. A large collection of interchangeable hardware for compression, tension and bending, and maintenance of controlled environment is also available for use with these machines. In addition to Instron and MTS systems, a custom-built device consisting of a stepper motor, LVDT, and controlled via Labview software is available for confined and unconfined compression testing. A thickness measurement device is available composed of a near frictionless LVDT probe and platform apparatus capable of directly measuring sample thickness down to 0.01 mm. A CCD laser cross-sectional area measurement device is also available for non-contact measurements of geometry down to 0.016 mm. A large array of video and camera equipment is available including: color and black/white CCD video camera backs (both NTSC and PAL formats), large variety of lenses for high magnification and wide-angle views, as well as several lens filters. These cameras can be integrated with several different types of available monitors, computers, and VCRs to record research activities. For high-resolution imaging, a Kodak Megaplus 4.2i CCD camera with a pixel array of 2000 x 2000 provides outstanding resolution. This black and white camera has 10-bit digital output, providing a dynamic range of 1024 levels of gray. Two dissecting microscopes are also available for dissection/surgical work with magnification from 4-25.2. Illumination is via a heatless fiber-optic lightsource. In addition, a system for capturing and analyzing digital images from various microscopes, video systems, and cameras is available. This system includes a positioning device for precise placement of imaging equipment and/or specimens, PC imaging station with a frame grabber capable of 30 frames/second high resolution color imaging, and multiple software tools for image analysis and display. A Leica SM2400 Sledge Microtome, equipped with a Physitemp freezing stage allows for preparation of soft tissue mechanical test samples of uniform thickness. Lastly, an x-ray system is present with a five degree-of-freedom tube placement system with a generator for imaging bone and other tissues. The generator is capable of 40-125kV@25-500mA of high-frequency power. The tube has a focal spot of 0.3-1.2 mm for high-resolution imaging of small specimen areas. This system also includes a film processor for on site development of hard copy images. For more information on the Orthopaedic Bioengineering Lab, click here.
COMPUTATION: The McKay Laboratory contains 55 PC based (most Pentium 4 or better) and Macintosh personal computers. Almost all of these computers are networked via Penn-net for access to the Internet. These computers have the capability for word processing, spreadsheets, statistical analyses, charts and presentation materials, and image analysis. In addition, there are several high performance computers which contain software for programming, data analysis, and finite element analysis (including Matlab and ABAQUS). Another set of high performance computers are used to control large equipment, acquire data, and acquire and analyze optical images. For the making of slides, one Macintosh and one Compaq computer are each connected to Montage FR2 film recorders. In addition, several printers (some networked), film recorders, slide scanners, and flatbed scanners are also available in the labs.
MACHINE SHOP: This is a small lab used for the construction and repair of experimental hardware and jigs. The area containing the metal-cutting machinery is vibration isolated from the rest of the floor. A drill press, band saw, grinder, South Bend Lathe, and Bridgeport vertical milling machine with digital readout are located here, as is a reasonable selection of hand and power tools and related accessories.
HISTOLOGY: This laboratory is divided into two major areas. The general histology laboratory is equipped with a Reichert-Jung PolyCut S sliding microtome for very large specimens, 2 Olympus CUT 4060 rotary microtomes, a Sorvall MT2-B ultramicrotome, a Tissue-Tek II Tissue Embedding Center, 2 Fisher Flotation Baths, 2 Fisher slide drying boxes and stain sets for H&E, immunohistochemistry & special stains. Specimens of decalcified bone specimens and soft tissues may be embedded in paraffin wax or plastic or frozen for cryosectioning on a Microm HM-500 cryostat. An Instrumedics Cryo-Jane tape transfer system is available for cryosectioning of frozen, calcified bone or other brittle tissues. A dual-head Leica BMLB Research Microscope is available for reviewing slides as well as a Meiji-Techno dissection microscope. General lab equipment includes a balance, heating stir plates, a fume hood, and a -200C freezer. The smaller office area has computer with a scanner, color inkjet printer and Nikon digital camera for capturing, viewing and manipulating of digital images. The computer is also used for logging and tracking of specimens and slides. Specimen logs, experimental protocols, and histology request forms are available on the laboratory server. A Leica DMLP polarized light microscope with digital image capture/manipulation system and a Lipshaw sliding microtome are also available as are facilities for autoradiography and photomicrography. Lastly, a Shandon Citadel 2000 automatic tissue processor and a Leica cryostat located in an adjacent lab are available for use.
BIOCHEMISTRY/BIOPHYSICS: Equipment is housed in several lab areas and in a walk-in cold room. It includes analytic and top-loading balances, an International CU-5000 low-speed centrifuge, a Beckman J2-21 high-speed refrigerated centrifuge with three rotors, a Beckman L8-70M ultracentrifuge with two rotors, sonicators, circulating water baths, an Eppendorf Thermomixer, high-speed tissue homogenizers, three microcentrifuges, a high capacity Virtis lyophilizer, an Hitachi Model U-2000 double-beam UV-VIS scanning spectrophotometer with sample sipper, a BioRad 550 microplate reader (415, 490, and 525nm filters), a Biotek Synergy HT Multi-Detection Microplate Reader (monochrometer absorbance, luminescence, fluorescence), a Glycko FACE gel box system for dissaccharide analysis, a Hoefer DyNAQuant 200 fluorometer, a Revco ultra-low temperature freezer, a Savant Speed-Vac concentrator, a conductivity meter, and a pH meter, as well as apparatus for liquids handling. For protein and nucleic acid analysis, equipment for polyacrylamide and agarose gel electrophoresis, densitometry, column chromatography, and fraction collecting is available. A designated area is used for research using radioactive isotopes. This area includes hood space, stainless steel benchtops, and houses a Beckman Model LS 6000IC scintillation counter, a Boekel hybridization oven and a Geiger counter.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY: The molecular biology laboratories contain bench space with individual work areas, and are well-equipped with fume hoods, analytical balance, pH meter, water purification system (Millipore), low speed and high speed centrifuges (Sorvall RT-6000B; Beckman J2-HS with JA-10, JA-20, JS-13 rotors), microfuges, chromatography-style refrigerator, water baths. The laboratory also contains specialized work areas for radioactive isotope handling that includes water baths, hybridization incubators (Bellco), thermal cycler (Hybaid), microfuge, fume hood. Equipment for agarose and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis includes gel apparatus for horizontal (Hoefer, Pharmacia, and Owl) and vertical (Hoefer and BioRad) gels, DNA sequencing (Fisher), electrophoretic transfer (Hoefer and BioRad), power supplies (Fisher, Stratagene, Hoefer). Additional equipment includes a Nanodrop ND-1000 spectrophotometer, four thermal cyclers (MJR PTC-200, Perkin Elmer 480, Eppendorf Mastercycler), an ABI 7000 Sequence Detection System (for real-time PCR), an ABI 7300 real-time PCR system, a phosphorimager (Molecular Dynamics, Storm 840), uv/vis spectrophotometer (Pharmacia; BioRad), an electroporator (BioRad), a speed-vac concentrator, vacuum oven, gel dryer, ultra-low temperature freezer (Forma), microwave, and environmental shaking and standard incubators for bacterial cell growth. An adjacent room contains a uv light box (VWR), an MP4 camera for Polaroid photography, and a uv crosslinker. Additional departmental laboratory rooms contain a scintillation counter (Beckman), an ultracentrifuge (Beckman L8-70 with NVT65, SW41Ti, 70Ti rotors), a dark room for X-ray film developing, and a fluorometer (Hoefer).
TISSUE CULTURE: The tissue culture laboratory consists of four rooms-one general work area, one gas tank room, one storage area, and one culture-handling room. The general work area contains four 2-chamber water-jacketed Forma Model #3315 three gas (CO2, O2, N2) incubators with independent variable atmosphere capability, two counter-top CO2 Forma Model #3033 incubators, two water-jacketed Forma Model #3230 incubators with automatic CO2 control (and three-gas capability), two water-jacketed VWR Model #2350 incubators with automatic CO2 control, an Air Curtain incubator Model #279, a Nikon Diaphot 200 inverted microscope with digital picture-taking capabilities, various light microscopes and slide warmers, a Beckman Field Model #1008 oxygen analyzer, a Fisher Model #106G oven, a Phillips Drucker Model #2708 centrifuge, a large-capacity multipurpose refrigerated Eppendorf centrifuge Model #5810R, a refrigerated Eppendorf microcentrifuge Model #5417R, a Clay Adams Model #0131 centrifuge, a Teledyne Model #320B/RC oxygen meter, a Biolab Digital oxygen analyzer BB9550, and an Steris autoclave Model #P5152-091. Additional equipment includes two upright refrigerator/freezers, one undercounter refrigerator, and a large capacity microwave oven. The culture-handling area contains three Forma Class II A/B3 laminar flow hoods (2 four foot units, 1 six foot unit), the gas storage area holds two liquid CO2 tanks and a manifold for centrally supplying all of the incubators. Also available are two 24-gallon liquid nitrogen cryogenic containers for cell storage. The storage area is used for laboratory consumables.