Biology & Microbiology Facilities

The UW Oshkosh Department of Biology & Microbiology is housed within Halsey Science Center (HSC), along with Departments of Chemistry, Physics/Astronomy, Geography, and Computer Science. We are in the early stages of a massive building renovation ($16.6 million budgeted), which will upgrade heating and cooling systems, all the fume hoods, and most of the teaching and research space.

The building is fully networked, and all faculty have computers (both PC's and Mac's) with full internet access in their offices and laboratories. HSC is home to two large computer labs (one with PC's and one with Sun workstations), both of which are open to students. The Department of Biology & Microbiology also maintains a small computer lab with 6 Pentium machines for use in ecology classes.

Within a short drive from campus are a multitude of habitats for field study, including wetlands, rivers and lakes, hardwood forests, upland coniferous forests, lowland cedar forests, prairie remnants, and agricultural sites. The University owns two field sites: Allen Marsh, a cattail marsh on Lake Butte de Mortes, and High Trestle, a mixture of upland and lowland forest. Various items such as boats, a van, and miscellaneous sampling apparati are owned by the department for use by faculty and students.

We are fortunate to have well-stocked research labs with a variety of research-grade microscopes, incubators, fermenters, laminar flow hoods, and equipment for molecular biology. In addition to our own equipment, we have access to facilities in other departments such as Chemistry's atomic absorption mass spectrometer, and the Geographic Information System lab in Geography.

Specialized labs in Biology & Microbiology include:

• the Herbarium OSH - the third largest in the State of Wisconsin!
• an Insect Collection of approximately 30,000 specimens
• the Industrial & Environmental Microbiology Laboratory    
  • Portable Gas chromatograph with a FID and TCD
  • JUM Model 320 Portable Hydrocarbon Analyzer
  • Several fermenters
  • Microtox Microbial Toxicity testing system
  • Several biofiltration systems
  • Bench-scale humidification/air scrubbing system
  • Field probes for conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, and BOD
  • Virtis 20L automated fermenter
  • Heated transfer line for EPA Method 25A air sampling
  • Pilot-scale biofiltration units
  • Portable sampling equipment and enclosures for all weather field work
  • Boat for lake sampling
  • Portable thermohydrometer
  • 12 laboratory fully automated biofiltration units
  • Lab-scale chemical scrubber (stainless steel)
  • Labconco Laminar/Biohazard hood
  • Lab-scale bioreactor systems (stainless steel)
  • A variety of other chemical and microbiological research equipment
• approximately 2600 square feet of greenhouse space, located on the roof of HSC
• the UW Oshkosh Electron Microscopy Facility with:
  • a Hitachi environmental scanning E.M., equipped with a Noran energy dispersive spectrometer for elemental microanalysis
  • a Zeiss transmission E.M.
  • a critical point dryer
  • gold sputter coater
• a well-equipped animal care facility
• human cadaver dissection room
• a constant temperature aquarium room
• two dark rooms for photographic work (one in the E.M. lab)
• a tissue culture lab with:
  • CO₂ incubators
  • laminar flow hoods
  • inverted microscope with epifluorescense and an image analysis system
• several walk-in cold rooms
• a low-temperature separation room
• a walk-in 37 C room
• a radioisotope laboratory
• the biomolecule separation lab with:
  • DNA synthesizer
  • densitometer
  • scintillation counter
  • HPLC
  • FPLC for aqueous protein separation
  • UV/VIS spectrophotometers
  • a fluorimager for non-radioactive molecular determination and quantification
• a well-staffed media preparation lab
• the river lab: 2 laboratories and a boat storage facility located on the Fox River

Other specialized equipment in our department includes:

• Computers with image analysis and slide-printing capabilities
• three large -80 C freezers
• one -160 ultra cold freezer
• several class II containment hoods
• constant temperature plant growth chambers
• pulsed-amplitude-modulated fluorometer for photosynthesis measurements
• submersible probes for light, oxygen, temperature, and conductivity measurements
• Various other air monitoring equipment
• two ultracentrifuges
• two high speed centrifuges
• several thermocyclers for PCR
• facilities for cloning, DNA hybridization, and DNA sequencing
• 7 autoclaves
• a gene pulser
• ultrafiltration units
• sonicators
• various research-grade light microscopes equipped with epiflourescence, Nomarski differential interference contrast, and phase contrast optics
• 6 teaching microscopes equipped with video cameras and large monitors

Return to the Biology & Microbiology Home Page

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Please send questions or comments to Dr. Colleen McDermott (mcdermot@uwosh.edu).

Last updated 11/28/00.