The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is well equipped with multiuser research facilities and has a wide array of personal and common instrumentation used by our faculty and students for their research programs. Among other basic chemical and biochemical facilities, some of the recently acquired instruments are highlighted below.

A recent acquisition (shown at right) is an NSF-funded Microcal Auto-iTC200 Isothermal Titration Calorimeter that aids in direct and highly sensitive measurements of thermodynamic parameters of chemical and biomolecular interactions. Current research using this instrument includes study of effects of drug binding to human serum albumin, molecular recognition of anions and organoammoniums, and protein-lipid interactions.

Another new arrival in the Department (pictured below) is the Panalytical X'pert Pro Alpha1 system, a state-of-the-art instrument for performing X-ray powder diffraction. Equipped with an ultrafast X'Celerator detector and the High Score Plus software, it yields high resolution diffraction patterns. It is also used to detect the formation of desired phases, phase homogeneity, and if present, the type of side products.

The following is a broad overview of various instruments in the Department, a majority of which was obtained by funding from The Research Corporation, The National Science Foundation and The National Institutes of Health:

• Spectrophotometers: ultraviolet-visible, infrared, fluorescence, circular dichroism, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)
• Mass spectrometers: Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) and Matrix Assisted Laser Desortpion Ionization-Time of Flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometer for proteomics analysis, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICP-MS) for metal analysis
• Microscopes: electron microscopes (transmission, scanning and scanning-tunneling), fluorescence microscope, and atomic force microscope
• Chromatography: high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Fast Protein Liquid Chromatography (FPLC) and ion chromatography, as well as capillary electrophoresis
• X-ray diffraction:crystallography and powder diffraction
• Calorimetry:isothermal titration calorimetry and differential scanning calorimetry
• Other instruments:dynamic light scattering, liquid scintillation and gamma counters, thermogravimetric analysis, cyclic voltammetry, and cluster & distributed computing resources for biomolecular modeling

In addition, Department faculty and students also have access to the instrumentation within the Department of Biological Sciences. This includes the NSF-funded Olympus Fluoview 1000 Confocal laser scanning system mounted on an Olympus IX-81 microscope: a next-generation imaging system designed for high-resolution confocal observation of fixed and live cells, which is open to all qualified users, as well as a fluorescence activated cell sorter (FACS).

With funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation for the development of a proteomics center, the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environments, and Society (IIRMES) in CSULB fosters a cross-disciplinary approach to scientific research among faculty members and students. It offers a variety of ICP-MS systems, as well as an Applied Biosystems 4800 MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS.