Facilities

The Pediatric Engineering Research Laboratory (PERL) is located in the research and administration building of the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. Facilities include 1500 sq. ft. of lab and office space. Equipment includes 6 PC workstations (all PERL computers are Internet-connected; 3 rehabilitation robotic devices including a PHANTOM haptic input device; sensors to measure force (Assurance Technologies six-axis load cells and strain gauge load cell fabrication). The PERL has a fully operational mechanical fabrication facility that has computer-aided design capabilities including a numerically controlled milling machine, lathe, drill press, vacuum-forming table, and an array of small tools. For proof of concept and functional testing, the laboratory uses a dimension sst 1200es three-dimensional printing machine. This machine prints prototype test formations using ABS-plus material, making it ideally suited for testing the form, fit, and function of inherently fragile and fine-featured models.

The Bone & Cartilage Laboratory (BCRL) is also located in the research and administration building of the Alfred I. duPont Hospital. The BCRL consists of 1200 sq. ft. of laboratory space including rooms for imaging and microscopy, PCR, tissue culture, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting and analysis. The BRCL functions as a fully equipped molecular biology and basic biochemistry laboratory with a focus on tissue engineering and orthopedic translational research. The laboratory comprises the necessary equipment for gene expression analysis, immunohistochemical and histophorphometric analyses of bone and cartilage specimens, and protein characterizations and measurements. Resources include a Nikon florescence microscope with Image-Pro Plus imaging software (Image Pro plus); two CCD cameras; PCR room with three PCR machines including one with quantitative real-time PCR capabilities; Waters HPLC; a fully equipped tissue culture facility including two incubators; refrigerated centrifuge; upright microscope; inverted microscope; two laminar flow biosafety cabinets; and an adjacent cold room. Included in the laboratory is a FACS core facility which comprises a Beckman Altra unit with three lasers suitable for high-speed sorting and analyses.

Additionally, Nemours Biomedical Research also has on-site shared equipment including two Leica Confocal Microscopes, a Leica Laser capture microdissection microscope; a BioRad 2-Gel electrophoresis System, two Waters HPLC, and an amino acid analyzer.