The Department of Biochemistry Fermentation Facility opened in 1984 with new equipment purchased from an NIH (S10) Shared Instrument Grant. The original building was built to serve the needs of a rapidly growing medical school with Biochemistry Department led by Robert D. Wells. Dr. Wells was recruited to Birmingham from the University of Wisconsin to add 10 new faculties focused on molecular studies of a range of biochemical specialties. The needs of this group included isolating enzymes, lipids, nucleic acids, and polysaccharides from a range of cultured organisms including bacteria, yeast, and tissue culture cells. One full time operating manager, Woody Robbins, hired in 1984, and part time technicians helped UAB and visiting scholars use the instruments for their specific customized experimental purposes. In 1998, the Fermentation facility moved from its original site to the current locale at the edge of the UAB campus. The structure is a standalone building that houses a cluster of laboratories specifically designed with special water, steam, and electrical provisions for large scale experimental growth chambers and fermentation equipment. The Fermentation facility occupies 2000 sq ft in this building. Dr. N. Patrick Higgins now directs the Fermentation Lab, which operates with two full time personnel. Woody Robbins is the Engineering Manager of the unit, and has served in that capacity for 25 years. He runs the operation and maintenance schedule and is the primary contact person for users inside and outside the university. Kim Hardy has been a key Research Assistant for 12 years. Kim took charge of growing 2000 L of HeLa cells that allowed Hengbin Wang to isolate a deubiquitination complex (see Joo, H. Y., L. Zhai, et al. (2007). Nature 449(7165): 1068-72. The lab runs on a break even strategy to recover running costs and salary for the two essential workers. This has worked well since 2001. The existing fermentation equipment consists of five fermentors made by New Brunswick Scientific. Two units are not operational and it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain spare parts for the remaining units. This application requests funding for the purchase of 3 new fermentors and a cell-harvesting centrifuge to replace the old units so that the facility can continue well into the future providing investigators with the tools to efficiently conduct research in health related sciences.
The investigators taking advantage of the UAB Fermentation Facility's services are conducting basic health related research to better understand a variety of human diseases. The goal of this research is to gain a thorough understanding of the underlying mechanisms of specific diseases and applying that knowledge to developing more effective treatments and patient care.
