Facilities
The Department of Biochemistry primarily occupies the first two floors of the Nanaline Duke Building, located on Research Drive, which is part of the Duke University Medical Center. More than 33,000 net square feet of research space is available for the activities of the faculty, students and fellows. The departments of Cell Biology, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Immunology, Neurobiology, Pathology, and Pharmacology and Cancer Biology are located in a cluster of adjacent buildings, facilitating interactions among members of these departments. In addition, the Departments of Biology and Chemistry are located within five minutes walk from the Medical School, which allows an easy interchange with these departments.
Faculty and students have access to state-of-art instrumentation, including X-ray crystallography, multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance, computer graphics, electron microscopy, and support facilities like peptide and oligonucleotide synthesizers, large scale fermentation, optical microscopy and imaging systems. Computer facilities are excellent; Duke’s major terminal for the Triangle Universities Computation Center is located across the street from the Biochemistry Department. The Department is located next to the 150,000 volume Seeley Mudd Medical Center Library, and the combined University libraries contain almost 3 million volumes.
Duke Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Center
The Duke Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Center (DMRSC) provides access to highfield NMR instrumentation, training in the use of NMR methods, and expert consultation on advanced NMR applications. The Center serves as a research resource and shared instrument facility for research programs at Duke and in the Southeastern region. The Center was established with funding from the National Science Foundation, the Biomedical Research Support Shared Instrumentation Grants Program of the National Institutes of Health, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center of the State of North Carolina, and Duke University and has subsequently received additional support for new instrumentation including an 800 MHz spectrometer from these agencies and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. General guidelines for allocation of time on the NMR spectrometers and the operating policy of the NMR Center are established and periodically reviewed by the DMRSC Steering Committee.