Home » Facilities
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Facilities
The School of Biological Sciences has numerous labs and outdoor biology
stations which are used for research and teaching. In addition, the University has several
centers that provide research support for our programs.
Brackenridge Field Laboratory
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The
Brackenridge
Field Laboratory is a unique urban research station located on 88 acres
of land that borders the Colorado River along Lake Austin Boulevard. From the early
days of the University of Texas, biologists have used this tract of land for research,
teaching, and specimen collection, and since the establishment of the Field Laboratory
in 1967, BFL has continued to evolve as a center for biodiversity research in Texas.
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The
Stengl Biology Station (Lost
Pines), is a 200-acre outdoor facility located 45 minutes southeast
of campus. The area combines the characteristics of the typical grasslands and woodlands
of central Texas, the oak-dominated temperate deciduous regions of eastern Texas,
and also relict elements of the pine forest which dominated the area 5,000 years
One of the vessels used by the U.T. Marine Science Institute.
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ago. The "Lost Pines" area contains Loblolly Pine and bog-associated flowering plants,
ferns and bryophytes. This rich combination of Texas vegetation typical of old moister
habitats with xeric elements which have since come in from the south provides an
outstanding natural laboratory for studies in ecology and evolutionary biology.
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The
U.T. Marine Science Institute
has laboratories and boat facilities on the Gulf of Mexico at Port Aransas, about
200 miles from Austin. This provides access to a wide variety of beach, bay, Gulf
shelf, and open Gulf environments. Buildings include a laboratory and classroom
building, a pier laboratory over the Aransas Pass, dormitories and mess hall, and
a library/auditorium building. Special facilities include a 105-foot research vessel
(the Longhorn), a 57-foot trawler (the Katy), and outboard launches and skiffs.
There are invertebrate, vertebrate, and algal reference collections and a library
that contains some 8,000 books and 37,000 bound journal volumes in marine science
and related fields.
DNA facility
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The
DNA Facility
supports research on nucleic acids with automated sequencing, oligonucleotide synthesis,
and imaging capabilities.
The
Institute for Cellular and Molecular
Biology provides ultrastructural analysis through sophisticated
electron microscope facilities.
The
Protein Sequencing Facility,
located in the Molecular Biology Building, allows determination of amino acid composition,
sequences of proteins and peptides and peptide synthesis.
The
Animal Resources Center
has 14,000 sq. ft. devoted to housing a variety of animals used in research programs.
In addition to the caging areas, there are surgical suites and laboratories. The
resident populations include rodents, rabbits, dogs, cats, chickens, and quail.
The
Plant Resources Center
houses over one million preserved specimens maintained in two herbaria: the C.L.
Lundell collection, mostly of tropical plants, and the Texas collection. It is the
largest herbarium in the southwestern United States and ranked among the top 5 university
herbaria in the country.
The
Texas Memorial Museum in the
Texas Natural Science Center contains a collection of 5.7 million specimens in the
disciplines of paleontology, geology, biology, herpetology, ichthyology and entomology.
It also contains two research labs: the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory
and the Non-vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory.
The
Culture Collection
of Algae (UTEX) includes approximately 3,000 strains of freshwater
and marine algae for unrestricted distribution to interested investigators.
The
Environmental Science Institute,
located on the main campus, is a multi-disciplinary institute for basic scientific
research in environmental studies. Areas of research include: remote sensing, climate
change, watersheds, borderlands, urbanization, and microbial ecology.
The
Center for Computational Biology and
Bioinformatics provides research support and opportunities for researchers
interested in the use of computational approaches in solving biological problems. Areas
of research include: nucleic acid structure and function, molecular evolution, computational
phylogenetics, proteomics, drug design, regulatory and developmental pathway inference.
Libraries
The General Libraries, with over 6.6 million volumes, constitute the fifth largest
academic library in the U.S. Primary literature is available in hard-copy at the
libraries, as well as e-journals via the web.
The
Life Science Library
contains 125,000 volumes and over 1800 journal subscriptions.
The
Mallett Chemistry Library
has over 50,000 volumes and over 400 journal subscriptions. Both libraries are equipped
for computer searching of national databases.
