Resources

Facilities
BIST Lab has space and facility to for the design and developement of new systems and experimental setups that are required for the ongoing multidisciplinary. We have lab space that we use as graduate student office and theoretical/computational research. We also has lab space for electronic design, optical design and darkroom, mechanical design and machining, biology wet lab and surgery rooms.

College of Engineering
The College of Engineering & Applied Science (CEAS) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) provides excellent space and infrastructure for the proposed research. The Bioinspired Sciences and Technologies Laboratory (BIST-LAB) directed by Dr. Pashaie is in 8th and 11th floor of the engineering building which is located next to the biology and life sciences department and the university small animal facilities.
Lab Space:
UW-Milwaukee has provided appropriate lab space for our research projects. Our lab is divided into 4 separate areas all located in the 8th floor of the Engineering building. Area 1. Dark room for optical/photonic experiments which is also a suitable space for our patch clamp, electrophysiology rig, and microcopy facilities. Area 2. office space for students and postdocs which is the place where each lab member has a separate desk and computer. This place is particularly designed for studying books and papers, doing theoretical research, and running computer simulations, Area 3. Electronic bench and mechanical design station. In this area we have suitable space to build and test our electronic circuits and implement our mechanical designs. Electronic test/measurment devices such as signal generators, power supplies, oscilloscopes, network analyzers, and other pieces are placed in this area. We also have installed our CNC mill and lathe machine and other powered tools which are necessary for development of mechanical systems in this area. Area 4. Biology lab, is the place where we have cell culture facilities, stereotaxic surgery setup, wet lab and counter top for molecular biology and sample preparation, and suitable space for other equipment such as ultra low freezer, fume hood, etc.

Office Space:
UW-Milwaukee has provided appropriate office space for our lab members and the PI. Office space for the students are located next to our lab facilities on the 8th floor of the main engineering building and the office space for the PI is on the 11th floor. In all our office and lab spaces we have access to phone and LAN and wireless internet connections.

Computation:
We have more than eight recently purchased desktop computers and two laptop computers in the lab which are specifically used for our research. Moreover, engineering school at UW-Milwaukee has recently purchased and installed a relatively large processor cluster where more than 100 up-to-date CPUs process input data in parallel. As member of the engineering school we have access to the cluster to run our computer simulations when massive computational power and memory is required
Machineshop and Rapid Prototyping:
Engineering school at UW-Milwaukee has a relatively large machine shop which is located on the second floor of the main engineering building. Also, new 3D printers have recently purchased for rapid prototyping and these facilities are located on the first floor of the main engineering building.

Animal Facility:
The University of Wisconsin has dedicated animal care and housing through the Research Animal Resources Center. Animals will be housed and maintained in the centers, which are both in close proximity to our lab in the engineering building. We have also a dedicated small animal surgery suite and short term housing for rodents.

LOCI LAB @ UW-Madison:
Dr. Pashaie is a co-investigator in the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI) at UW-Madison. The LOCI center houses state-of-the-art laser scanning microscopy instruments, including: 1) A swept-field confocal microscope, 2) a multiphoton optical workstation for simultaneous multiphoton imaging and laser ablation, 3) multiphoton microscope with fluorescence lifetime detection, 4) a newly developed upright in vivo multiphoton workstation with spectral detection and a tunable wavelength laser. The LOCI instruments are available at no charge to the center investigators.

Library:
UW-Milwaukee has a relatively large library where many engineering and science textbook and journals are accessible. We also have access to all libraries of University of Wisconsin system, including the library of UW-Madison which is one of the largest libraries nation-wide.

Equipment:

  • Electronics: High-frequency oscilloscopes, arbitrary waveform generators, low- noise amplifiers, digitizers, DC power supplies
  • Photonics: Several laser systems and drivers, fast switchable incoherent sources, spatial light modulators, ultra-sensitive solid-state detectors and photomultipliers, several anti-vibration optical tables, optical power meters, optical/optoelectronic components, optical fibers
  • Microprocessor and data acquisition systems: Microcontroller boards, NI high speed DAQ systems
  • Machining: CNC mill, CNC lathe, powered saw/drill, a complete mechanical bench
  • Biology/Neuroscience/Molecular genetics: Olympus BX51 fluorescence microscope with motorized stage; patch clamp facility, including Multiclamp 700B amplifier; Digidata 1440 digitizer; perfusion systems; micropipette puller; AE31 inverted fluorescence microscope; stereo microscope; motorized micromanipulators; high-power light sources, including X-cite and Lambda DG- 4; Class II bio-safety cabinet; CO2 incubator; Autoclave; ultra-low freezer; electroporation; sensitive CCD cameras
  • Software: MATLAB, Mathematica, Labview, Comsol, Optiwave, Pclamp, Zemax, ProE, EMC2