Instrument Catalog

Analytical Ultracentrifuge Beckman Coulter Proteomelab XL-I
Short Name: AU
Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics
Instrument Location: KCL 3
Date of Acquisition: November 2009

Analytical ultracentrifugation is a column-free separation technique that measures the relative change in the distribution of molecular weights, providing a way to measure heterogeneity, stoichiometry and self-association of proteins, oligomers, aggregates, particles, colloids, and small structures in solution. 

Applied Photophysics Chirascan Circular Dichroism Spectrometer
Short Name: CD
Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics
Instrument Location: KCL 3
Date of Acquisition: September 2013

Chirascan is a modern, high performance circular dichroism (CD) spectrometer operating in the ultraviolet and visible wavelength range. It is typically used to probe the secondary structure or conformation of bio-molecules.

Standard Operating Procedure

DLS Dynamic Light Scattering Wyatt DynaPro PlateReader II
Short Name: DLS
Instrument Type: Scattering, Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics, Instrument Type: Structural Science
Instrument Location: KCL 3
Date of Acquisition: October 2013

Dynamic light scattering measures the diffusion rate of molecules or particles in solution by observing the fluctuations in scattered light from a laser passing through a sample. The sensitivity of DLS increases with increasing molecular size, with a typical lower size limit of 0.5 nanometers and upper size limit of 10 micrometers.

Typical applications for DLS include:

  • Screening macromolecules prior to crystallization trials
  • Measuring the stability of protein samples for NMR analysis
  • Monitoring molecular aggregation
  • Characterizing nanoparticles

The DynaPro PlateReader II is set up to make these measurements in 96, 384, or 1536 well plates using as little as 5 microliters of sample.

Standard Operating Procedure

TA NanoITC
Short Name: ITC
Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics
Instrument Location: KCL 16B
Date of Acquisition: August 2014

By determining heat changes associated with binding between any two biomolecules, ITC measures all binding parameters in a single label-free, in-solution experiment.

TCSPC TD-Fluor Horiba Fluorolog 3 Time Domain Fluorimeter
Short Name: TCSPC
Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics
Instrument Location: KCL 16B
Date of Acquisition: December 2009

The Fluorolog 3 is a modular fluorimeter that can be set up to make time-domain fluorescence measurements at specific wavelengths, or steady-state fluorescence measurements over a range of excitation and/or emission wavelengths. 

Xenocs Xeuss 3.0 Small/Wide X-ray Scattering System
Short Name: SAXSWAXS
Instrument Type: Diffraction (X-ray and electron), Instrument Type: Scattering, Instrument Type: Solution Biophysics, Instrument Type: Structural Science
Instrument Location: SCL 26
Date of Acquisition: December 2022

The Xeuss 3.0 offers a maximum flexibility of measurement configurations to get the best possible data quality on any type of sample.

 

In particular, the following key features enable the user to optimize experiments or results:

 
  • High flux settings adapted for fast kinetics embedded in a low background camera
  • Largest surface of detection moveable all the way from WAXS to long distance SAXS to optimize resolution and signal-to-noise
  • Long distance SAXS settings for measuring large characteristic dimensions (up to 900 nm depending on the Xeuss 3.0 model)
  • Optional USAXS module to characterize  large structures ( > 2.5 µm)