Biotechnological Teaching Laboratories

The Biotechnologies Teaching Laboratories include five laboratories equipped with modern and cutting-edge instrumentation, mainly  dedicated to Bachelor's Degrees in Biotechnology and Genomics and Master's Degrees in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Molecular and Industrial Biotechnology, Molecular and Cell Biology, Bioinformatics and Health Biology.

Cellular Cultures Laboratory (52 workstations)  

The lab has 26 laminar flow hoods, for the manipulation and culture of cells in sterile conditions.    

Main teaching activities consist in the amplification and isolation of cell populations, cell counting, staining and recognition, cytogenetics, preparation of specimen for immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence microscopy,  vitality assays and adhesion assays.   

Straight and inverted phase contrast optical microscopes, incubators, centrifuges, a cytospin, an inverted fluorescence microscope and a flow cytometer are available.   

Microbiology and Fermentation Laboratory (60 workstations)  

The laboratory is dedicated to teaching the main experimental techniques in the field of molecular and cellular biology, microbiology and fermentations.    

Main activities concern the preparation of culture media for the isolation and growth of microorganisms, their identification, experiences of microbial fermentation, extraction of DNA, RNA and proteins from biological samples, electrophoretic techniques, biochemical analysis of cell viability and functionality and enzymatic activity, analysis of gene expression and preparation of slides for microscopic observation.            

Ten fermenters controlled by dedicated PCs, centrifuges, scales, equipment for nucleic acid and protein electrophoresis, UV-Vis spectrophotometers, an apparatus for the acquisition of electrophoretic gel images, a plate reader in the visible field, thermocyclers, Real-time PCR, phase contrast microscopes, stereomicroscopes and autoclaves are available.  The lab is equipped with a video projection system.    

Morphological Laboratory of Optical and Fluorescence Microscopy (52 workstations)

The laboratory is dedicated to the observation of preparations for light microscopy, mainly stained with immunohistochemical and immunofluorescent techniques. The space is equipped with 26 straight microscopes, a fluorescence microscope with video camera and a video projection system.  

Bioinformatics Laboratory (52 workstations)

It consists of 52 student workstations equipped with dual boot Windows / Linux PCs and 24" screens. It is equipped with a laser video projection system.

Genoinformatic Laboratory "Genomics" (53 workstations) 

It consists of 53 student workstations equipped with dual boot Windows / Linux PCs and 24" screens. It is equipped with a 4-screen video projection system and an interactive multimedia whiteboard.