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South Sciences Building South Sciences Building 2

Building & Facilities

The Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry occupies more than half of the 70,000 sq. ft. South Science Building (SSB), which opened in 1993. It features open concept multifloor access and lounge areas with large skylights. In addition to pleasant, air-conditioned research laboratories, there are many shared equipment rooms and common facilities, including a large number of constant temperature rooms; darkrooms, gel documentation and X-ray developing facilities; Level 2 biohazard containment and tissue culture facilities; radiation containment rooms; centrifuges; autoclaving and dishwashing facilities; marine holding tanks; journal reading and computer room; and meeting rooms and lunch areas with food storage facilities. The SSB is closely connected to buildings occupied by other departments, which also houses sophisticated equipment and facilities. The spatial arrangement of SFU enhances interdepartmental interactions.



X-Ray Facilities

Equipment & Instrumentation

The Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry has many controlled-environment rooms and several shared-use equipment rooms, containing instrumentation (centrifuges, phosphoimager, spectropolarimeter, scintillation counter, spectrofluorometer, spectrophotometer, gel documentation systems, etc) for sample preparation, measurement and analysis. The Microscopy Suite is equipped with extensive imaging resources including laser scanning and spinning disc confocal microscopes (Microscopy Facility), an epifluorescence/DIC microscope, and image analysis software. The Department houses 2 600 mHz NMR spectrometers as well as facilities for protein purification, protein crystallization, static/dynamic light scattering measurement, and macromolecular X-ray diffraction. It is also home to a BD FACS-Aria Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorter Facility (FACS Facility) and a new Animal Care Services centre (ACS website) for holding experimental animals. The department also houses a Molecular Biology Services Centre (MBSC website).

Computing Resources

Computing Resources

All Simon Fraser University campuses have campus-wide Wireless (WiFi) Internet Access. The Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry maintains its own in-house support for the over 500 networked computers currently used by faculty, students, visitors and staff. Departmental-use computer facilities range from Windows and Mac OS X workstations for running desktop applications to an in-department server room hosting resources for high-performance computing in a Linux environment. The Department also has a 28-seat fully equipped Computer Instructional Laboratory. The University's Data Centre hosts still more of MBB's computing and data storage resources. SFU is a WestGrid Partner and all MBB research groups have access to the Bugaboo 1280 CPU Core cluster as well as the 1.2 Petabyte (1200 Terabyte) Gridstore data storage facility located on the Burnaby Campus. Westgrid is a collaborative project that provides high performance computing, networking, and collaboration tools to universities in Western Canada.