Laboratories
The secondary unit of Portici has five laboratories dedicated to:
- Lab of Entomology: The laboratory is equipped for carrying out in vivo bioassays with insects and for the microscopic observation of biological samples. Optical stereo-microscopes with “focus stacking” and biological fluorescence microscopes with cameras dedicated to image acquisition are available.
- Lab of Molecular Biology: Studies on nucleic acids and proteins are here performed: extractions, quantization, amplification or in situ hybridization buffers. Thus centrifuges, thermoblocks, adjustable temperature baths, chemicals hoods represent a little example of the equipment provided in this lab.
- Lab of Chemistry: The lab is equipped with two chemical hoods used for solutions preparation. The lab is ready for the nucleic acid amplification by classic and Real Time thermocyclers, for DNA and protein electrophoretic analyses including their acquisition and visualization.
- Lab of Microbiology: The lab is equipped with a laminar flow hood and both static and rotating incubators for the isolation and preparation of microorganism cultures.
- Lab of Bioethology: The lab is equipped with a wind tunnel gallery and a y-tube olfactometer system to carry out behavioral analyses towards pests and their natural enemies.
- Lab of VOCs: The lab is equipped with highly sophisticated instrument (PTR-QiTOF-MS) for in vivo, real time VOCs detection from plants, insects and microorganisms, and the portable GFS-3000 is a high precision system for the assessment of plant photosynthesis (CO2-uptake) or respiration (CO2-release) and transpiration, also in combination with optical measurements.