Ventura Institute of Bio Sciences have well conditioned and updated equipments in the lab, not only to provide hands on training but also used for the various research activities at Ventura. Few of them are described below:

Refrigerated Centrifuge         The sedimentation of cells, bacteria, yeasts, DNA/ RNA and protein precipitates is routine in basic research. The centrifuge possessed by us is a Remi (C-24BL model), which can be programmed to work between –8oC to +40oC. The centrifuge can be fitted with rotors and adaptors of various capacities thus facilitating us to centrifuge volumes ranging from 1.5ml to 100ml at various speeds up to 20,000 rpm depending on the rotor. Apart from the above we also possess 1 other centrifuge.

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Thermo Cycler (PCR)         DNA amplification for molecular biology work and DNA fingerprinting work is one of the common activities at our institute. The amplification is done in an Eppendorf Master Cycler PCR. This thermo cycler is powered with a peltier element to facilitate the heating and cooling activities. We possess the mono block (96 wells) and also the dual block (0.6ml – 38 wells) and (0.2 ml – 40 wells). The gradient feature available in the machine is a boon for quick standardizations of protocols.

Incubator Shakers         There is an highly specified Incubator shakers housed at our institute. The incubator shakers range from pilot plants to heavy duty ones. The shakers possess an illumination system for cell culturing and also have the ability to maintain temperatures from +4 oC to +60 oC at a rpm range of 0–300. These shakers are utilized for culturing of bacteria and production of liquid cell culture of plants and for the fermentation procedures for the production of secondary metabolites.

Fermentor         Fermentation forms a vital part of life science discoveries and production. The fermentor is a semi automated stainless steel type. The fermentor comprises of custom-made boiler, chiller, fermentation vessel (3 litre capacity) with pH and DOES probes, which can be operated by a control panel. The fermentor is used for batch, continuous and fed batch kind of fermentations of organisms for the mass production of economically important products such as enzymes, antibiotics, organic acids and other proteins.

HPLC         High Performance Liquid Chromatography is a very important technique in the field of life sciences and mainly pharmaceuticals for analysis and purification of required compounds. The HPLC of Shimadzu possess a binary pump, which allows the analysis of the samples using a gradient mode of solvents, and the binary detector in the system allows for the detection of the compounds at different wavelengths. The column used is of the symmetry C18 (reverse phase) type, which has wide application in almost 95% of analysis. The integrated breeze software helps the user to integrate the results and also the calibration option available, quantitates the analyte. The options for obtaining the chromatogram in the required format are an added advantage. At the instrument is used to identify different components in a mixture of chemicals, to quantify the different concentrations of the active ingredients in a given formulation, which can be of a pharmaceutical, pesticide or organic source. It is also used to develop methods for identification and quantification of different analytes from various sources.

Horizontal Laminar Airflow         We have TOSHIBHA Horizontal Laminar airflow. These LAF clean air benches are the finest clean air equipment available in the market. It provides effective and satisfactory long-term sterile work conditions for microbiological investigation, tissue culture studies, toxic preparation etc., HEPA filters present in the LAF with the pore size of 0.3 micron has an efficacy of 99.997%.

UV- VIS Spectrophotometer         They have ELICO MICRO PROCESSOR (mp) based UV-VIS spectrophotometer, SL 159. This can be operated with PC through RS 232C interface with the help of ELICO’S Windows based software. It has a range of 190 to 1100nm wavelength with automatic calibration and positioning showing an accuracy of + or – 0.5 nm. Light sources used are deuterium and Tungsten.

Sub Marine (Agarose) Gel Systems         Submarine gel systems are used for the separation of DNA /RNA fragments. A biotech gel system is provided with elevated gel bed (10x 7 cm) non-compartmentalized buffer reservoirs, newly designed biotech gel castor, U.V transparent gel platforms and cold-water circulation provision.

Other instruments include         WATER BATH CYCLOMIXER / VORTEX MAGNETIC STIRRER HEATING MANTLES (LARGE & SMALL) PH METER ROTATOR WATER BATH AUTOCLAVE (LARGE & SMALL) SOXHLET EXTRACTOR INCUBATOR HOT AIR OVEN COMPOUND MICROSCOPE COLONY COUNTER REFRIDGERATOR DEEP FREEZER WEIGHING BALANCE -2 TRANS-ILLUMINATOR CALORIMETER VERTICAL ELECTROPHORETIC UNIT ION EXCHANGE CHROMATOGRAPHY COLOUMNS MICRO PIPPETS

Bioinformatics Lab         Ample no.of systems with latest configuration, dual OS and software are installed. Individual systems allotted for the trainees.

List of few of the Software’s installed         EMBOSS - European Molecular Biology Open Source Software suite. This includes more than 180 programs for sequence and structure analysis Tcoffee - Pair wise sequence alignment ClustalW/ClustalX - Multiple sequence alignment Sea view - Multiple sequence alignment Tex Shade - Publishing alignments Box shade - Publishing alignments Phylip - Phylogenetic analysis Readseq - File format conversion Rasmol - Molecular Visualization Chime - Molecular Visualization Swiss PDB viewer - Molecular Visualization and Modeling Genew - Gene Finding 3D-PSSM - Fold recognition HH Pred - Threading Modeller - Comparative/Homology modeling Procheck - Model verification Vienna RNA - RNA secondary structure prediction Rna Analyzer - A software tool-box for analysis of regulatory RNA elements HMMER - profile HMM methods for sensitive database searches WIT - Metabolic Pathways KEGG - Metabolic Pathways Argus lab - A molecular modeling, graphics, and drug design program Staden - DNA/protein sequence analysis Primer3 - primer designing tool. Chemsketch - chemical drawing tool. Orf finder - finds all open reading frames. Zinc database - ready to dock,3d formats.