CMU Biology Department

College Research Centers and Facilities

Central Michigan University faculty and students have access to modern facilities and equipment to support their research activities. The college occupies several modern, well-equipped buildings on campus and provides necessary computing facilities, including several servers, hundreds of networked PC and Macintosh computers with broadband Internet access, and assorted peripheral equipment.

The Center for Applied Research and Technology

CMU's Center for Applied Research and Technology (CART) is one of Michigan's "SmartZones" designed to foster relationships between universities and high-tech businesses. CART includes a Research and Incubator facility for entrepreneurial applied and technology-based companies. CART houses an IBM Regatta Supercomputer that currently ranks among the 500 fastest in the world. The advanced computing power allows for

Numerically intensive (floating point) complex mathematics: each of the 64 processors is capable of 1.5 GFLOPS (1,500,000,000 floating point operations per second).
Data intensive operations: each of the 16 nodes is outfitted with access to the world's fastest disk/data subsystem, IBM's Serial Storage Architecture (SSA). SSA operates at 150 MB/sec for each of the 16 adapters.

Departmental Research Labs and Equipment

Each department has specialized laboratories and equipment to support the learning and research activities of its students and faculty. Some notable features include:

Biology

Aquatics wet lab

Electron, compound light (including fluorescent and scanning laser confocal)
dissecting microscopes, as well as
sample preparation instruments

Liquid scintillation counter
Superspeed and ultra centrifuges
Microbiology, molecular biology and genetics labs – ABI 7500 real time PCR system
High pressure liquid chromatography
Cell/tissue culture lab
Electrophysiology setups for patch clamping
Software and computational facilities for bioinformatics/systematics of algae, plants and animals
Greenhouse
Boats and vehicles
Neithercut Woodland Nature Center
Veits Woods

Chemistry

Gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer
Liquid chromatographic systems
Ultraviolet, Fourier transform infrared, NMR and Laser Raman spectrometer
Single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction
Thermal analysis equipment including DSC, TGA and DMA

Geology

Geochemical Laboratories
X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Electron Microprobe, ICP-MS,
Ion Chromatograph
Groundwater monitoring equipment
Computer modeling facilities
Rock and mineral analysis labs
Paleontology lab
Geophysics laboratory

Physics

Thin Films Lab
Laser Spectroscopy Lab
Polymer Physics / Rheology Lab
Condensed Matter / X-Ray Diffraction Lab
High Performance Scientific Computing Lab
Brooks Astronomical Observatory

Computer Science

Unix and PC labs that support:
general and system programming
computer graphics
databases
networking
operating systems
software engineering
computer security
multi-media
Internet programming

Geography

Dedicated labs for
GIS
Remote Sensing
Image Processing
Geographic Information Systems Center
Meteorology lab

Industrial and Engineering Technology

Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing, Engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE)
Robotics / Automation
PLC (programmable logic controls)
Electronics / Instrumentation
Plastics / Composite Materials
Computerized Graphics Lab
Metallurgy Testing Center
Fuel / Lubricant Testing & Development Facility

Mathematics

Macintosh lab
Portable wireless notebook computer lab
Calculator-based labsCalculator-based rangers