Facilities

IBERS has a long history of substantial investment in facilities. As a result, staff and students in IBERS enjoy access to a formidable range of state-of-the-art equipment in first class laboratories. In addition, the geographic location of IBERS brings unrivalled access to natural habitats and managed landscapes. All of this is complemented by the excellent library resources (including the nearby National Library of Wales) and IT network available to the University as a whole.

Principal facilities supporting the Parasitology and Epidemiology Research Group include:

Roboworm: An automated high-content imaging platform enabling the repositioning of existing drugs or the identification of new compounds as next-generation anthelmintics (compounds that kill parasitic worms). The platform has a projected capacity of 100,000 tests per annum and comprises an integrated tissue culture facility, automated compound distribution/washing workstation and high content image analysis system coupled to customised software for segregating drug-induced schistosome phenotypes. This unique system draws together the very latest advancements in instrumentation and dramatically transforms the speed in which new anti-schistosomals can be identified. Aberystwyth University is opening up a new era of collaborative, interdisciplinary research in the fight against neglected tropical diseases of global importance. Please contact Prof. Karl Hoffmann (krh@aber.ac.uk) if you are interested in using this facility.

‌‌Advanced Microscopy and Bio-Imaging Laboratory: The Advanced Microscopy and Bio-imaging Laboratory was established in 2002 and is based in the refurbished electron microscope facility of IBERS. The laboratory has a Hitachi S-4700 field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), a JEOL 1010 transmission electron microscope (TEM) and a JEOL 840A cryo-scanning electron microscope (CSEM) and a Leica confocal laser scanning microscope (TCS SP5). Also available are fluorescence, polarising and interference contrast microscopes. A new addition in 2015 is a Leica LMD6000 Laser Microdissection microscope (LMD). The Advanced Microscopy and Bio-Imaging Laboratory team has considerable experience in dealing with a vast range of specimens both biological and material and is happy to discuss potential applications and proposals for collaborative research. If interested in using this facility, please contact Alan Cookson (akc@aber.ac.uk).

Together with a range of other IBERS facilities:

  • Biological Service Unit
  • Mass Spectrometry and Analytical Unit
  • Trophic Interaction Facility for modelling systems-level processes
  • Microarray Facility for transcriptomic analyses
  • Facilities for DNA sequencing, metabolomics and proteomics
  • Modeling laboratory for spatial and temporal integration of biological data