Lab Resources

The Lu Laboratory is a part of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the UT Tyler School of Medicine. The main Lab (BSL2) is located in Lab C1 and C2 in the Biomedical Research Building (BMR), where the lab utilizes various unique research methods to understand pathogenesis and the spread of infectious diseases across different levels. BSL2+ room and two separate microscope rooms are isolated from the main lab. Besides BSL2 and BSL2+ lab essentials, our lab has the following equipment:

Self-Customized Multi-Application Single-Molecule p-TIRF Imaging Platform: This fully customized four-channel p-TIRF microscope platform is built on a Nikon Ti2-E inverted microscope frame. The system integrates a Nikon 60× 1.27 NA water immersion objective, four ORCA Flash4.0 v3 sCMOS cameras, a QuadCam LS image splitter, four high-power Coherent single-wavelength CW lasers, an ASI stage with dual motorized actuators, and a large set of precision optical and mechanical components. The platform is designed for correlated single-molecule FRET and ligand-binding imaging experiments in genetic, protein, and viral systems. It enables simultaneous recordings of smFRET conformational dynamics, single-molecule ligand-binding kinetics, stoichiometry, and molecular heterogeneity, supporting advanced multimodal single-molecule imaging applications.
Customized single-application prism-TIRF microscope for either single-molecule FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer) or ligand binding: Using smFRET performed on a customized prism-TIRF microscope, we have been able to elucidate the dynamic nature of viral proteins, their interactions with host cells, and the conformational changes that occur during viral replication. It is also capable of conducting real-time single-molecule ligand binding, recording bound and ubound dwell time for interacting molecules at single binding event level, and further revealing binding kinetics, time-resolved stoichometry and heterogeneity.
Biotek Synergy HTX multi-mode microplate reader (model S1LA): This multi-functional microplate reader has units of absorbance plate reader, luminescence plate reader, and nanodrop plate. It is capable of reading ELISA microplates, luciferase microplates, and DNA/protein concentration quantification. We primarily use it to do ELISA and cell-based luciferase assays.
Horiba FluoroMax spectrofluorometer equipped with TCSPC and polarization modules: The Horiba Fluoromax-plus Spectrofluorometer is widely used in photochemistry and photophysics. We will mainly use it for excitation/emission, anisotropy, and lifetime measurements of fluorescently labeled proteins, peptides, and viral particles. Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) is a highly precise technique used in biophysics and biochemistry for measuring the lifetime of viral particles.
ÄKTA Pure Protein Purification System: The AKTA Pure 25 system is capable of performing various chromatography techniques, including affinity, ion exchange, size exclusion, and hydrophobic interaction chromatography. This versatility allows for the purification of a wide range of proteins, making it suitable for diverse research needs.
Dell Precision 7960 Tower Workstation: This high-performance customized workstation is equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation GPU , an Intel Xeon w9-3495X processor and 512 GB of DDR5 4800 MHz memory. The system also includes dual high-speed SSDs with 2 TB and 4 TB capacities, four 12 TB storage drives, and additional components optimized for large-scale computational workloads, AI applications, and data-intensive scientific research. The workstation is primarily used to operate the multi-application p-TIRF imaging platform, to perform time-series image acquisition and data processing.
Customized Dell workstation: This workstation can run offline versions of Spartan/Flash for smFRET acquisition and analysis and Matlab. This workstation provides computing power for data and image analyses, including deconvolution, quantification, single cell and particle tracking, smFRET analysis, and modeling.
Customized Lamda workstation: The Lamda workstation is for cryoEM structural analysis and MD simulations. CryoSPARC software platform and other structure-solving-related software are installed on this workstation. This customized supercomputer has both Ubuntu and Wins 10 OP, 256GB memory (8 x Samsung DDR4-3200 RDIMM), two NVIDIA RTX A6000 GPUs, AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX (64 cores, 2.70~4.50GHz, 256 MB cache, PCIe 4.0) processor, three SSDs (12TB, 3xSamsung PM9A3 NVMe Gen4 M.2), and others.
Lab Essentials, including BioRad ChemiDoc™ Imaging System, NanoDrop™ Onec Spectrophotometer, ZOE Fluorescent Cell Imager, Gene Pulser Xcell Electroporator, Hirayama HICLAVE Autoclave, Applied Biosystems ProFlex PCR System, multiple Panasonic -80, -30, 4°C Freezers/Refrigerators, multiple Refrigerated Sorvall and Eppendorf Centrifuges, multiple CytoGlow Panasonic CO2 Incubators, ELGA LabWater Purelab, multiple Biosafety Cabinets, and other BSL2/2+ lab essentials.