Lab Spaces

CIRC occupies 10,000 sq. ft. of lab space on the sixth floor of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building (ISEB) and over 600 sq. ft. on the second floor of Engineering Hall at the University of California at Irvine and includes five core facilities: tissue culture, microscopy, histology, and mechanical testing. Additionally, CIRC supports six core facilities that are shared amongst the faculty and trainees of the Center. The six facilities are the Cell and Tissue Facility (CTF), the Mechanical Testing Facility (MTF), the Histology Core Facility (HCF), the Teaching Core Facility (TCF), the Microscopy Core Facility (MCF), and the Core Rodent Imaging, Surgery and Hemodynamics Facility (CRISH facility). The core lab facilities in CIRC are supported by two full-time staff members who also provide training.

Cell and Tissue Facility

Cell and Tissue Facility (CTF), located in ISEB, is a comprehensive research facility (approximately 2,600 sq. ft.) providing infrastructure for cell and tissue culture. Eight level II Biosafety Cabinets and eight incubators support training and cell cultures. The incubators in ISEB are hooked up to gas cylinders that can be switched out to model a variety of gas concentrations. Four level II Biosafety Cabinets and six incubators are used for cultures requiring long term sustainability (greater than approximately 10 days). Further, the CTF houses a NovoCyte Flow Cytometer 3000. Additionally, the CTF has long term cell storage capabilities including a Thermo Scientific -80C upright freezer, -20 C freezers, and liquid nitrogen dewars.

The Microscopy Core Facility

The Microscopy Core Facility (MCF), located in ISEB, is a multi-user, shared instrumentation facility (approximately 400 sq. ft.) that provides modern light microscopy and biological imaging. The MCF has multiple imaging modalities including confocal, fluorescence, differential interference contrast, phase contrast, darkfield, and brightfield microscopy. The major equipment include: The microscopy core consists of three fluorescent microscopes including an inverted fluorescence microscope (Olympus) equipped with motorized stage, Hamamatsu cooled CCD camera, phase and oil objectives, and live cell imaging chamber and an upright fluorescence microscope (Nikon) equipped with a color camera. Finally, an Olympus FV3000 laser scanning microscope with laser lines at 405, 488, 514, 561, 594, and 640 nm wavelength, and a Spectra Physics Mat-tai femtosecond laser. The system has 3 PMTs for epi-detection for confocal imaging and one additional PMT detector for transmitted light. The system has two silicon PMT detectors, a transmitted light detector, and two GaAsp high-sensitivity detectors situated for non-descanned detection of multi-photon excited signals. The system has been customized for introduction of the red to near-infrared femtosecond laser and the descanned detection. The system also includes an environment chamber and an environmental box, motorized stages, and a set of high-quality microscope objective lenses.

The Mechanical Testing Facility

The Mechanical Testing Facility (MTF), located in ISEB, has essential instrumentation and training resources to achieve static and dynamic mechanical measurements including rheometry. The MTF provides the ability to investigate mechanical properties of both solids and liquids. The major equipment includes:1) Synergie 100 system which performs quasi-static uniaxial tension or compression and fatigue testing. This system is equipped with a 10 N load cell and interchangeable tensile grips, compression platens, and point indenters. The Synergie has a maximum extension range of 50 mm with a maximum speed of 2 mm/s. 2) The Anton Paar Physica MCR301 Rheometer which provides an immense range of rheological tests, both rotational and oscillatory. The modularity of the system allows the integration of temperature control (-150 -1000 oC) while performing analysis including stress and frequency sweeps, time and temperature sweeps, shear rates, and other dynamic test methods. Currently, the system has two platons: standard 25 mm diameter and 25 mm diameter, 2o cone, sandblast finish.

The Histology Core Facility

The Histology Core Facility (HCF), located in Engineering Hall, is a shared histology equipment facility (approximately 300 sq. ft.) that provides modern equipment to perform histological sectioning and preservation on tissues. The facility includes HM525 NX (Cryostat), Excelsior AS (Tissue Processor), HistoStar (Embedding Center), Rotary Microtome 355S, Tissue Float Bath, dewar, and a dedicated chemical hood.

Teaching Core Facility

Teaching Core Facility (TCF), located in Engineering Hall, is a space dedicated to student instruction (approximately 200 sq. ft.) that provides two level II Biosafety Cabinets and two incubators which support training in cell culture. The training facility also provides access to a refrigerator for supply storage and a liquid nitrogen dewar for long-term cell storage.

Small Animal Surgery and Hemodynamics Facility (SASH)

The SASH is located within the UCI vivarium in McGaugh Hall. This facility, which is approximately 500 sq. feet, is equipped for terminal and survival surgery on rodents as well as imaging and invasive hemodynamic measurements. In particular, the facility is equipped with heated operating platforms, lights, microscopes for microsurgeries, surgical equipment, small animal ventilators and small animal pacemakers. Necessary hardware and software for recording data and data analysis are also available. All necessary equipment to perform complete hemodynamic phenotypic analysis of mice/rats, including a Visual Sonics Vevo 770 ultrasound machine, high fidelity pressure and pressure-volume catheters, and ECG sensors and recording computers and software for analysis are state of the art.

Office and Administration

CIRC has over 5,000 sq. ft. of office space on the sixth floor of ISEB, which includes dry space for a conference room, break/kitchen, administrative staff offices, visiting researchers and professional staff offices, faculty offices, student write-up and study space.