Biacore has become the state of the art approach to defining molecular interactions between binding proteins. A BIACORE 3000, located in the ACRC (Rm 341), is available to UAMS researchers for molecular interaction analysis.

 

The BIACORE 3000 is an optical biosensor that uses surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for real-time monitoring of macromolecular interactions. Applications include affinity measurements and binding kinetics, concentration determinations, binding specificity analyses and epitope mapping.

 

BIAsimulation software version 3.2 allows users to design their experiments properly and BIAevaluation software version 3.2 enables researchers to analyze data and run kinetic simulation for binding kinetic parameters. The facility provides access to this instrument at a nominal cost for investigators who wish to use this technology in their research. In addition, the core facility also provides technical assistance and training for using the BIACORE 3000, as well as expertise in analysis of kinetic data when needed.

Molecular modeling and structural analysis is also supported by the Molecular Interaction facility. The facility supports state of the art software from Accelrys and Tripos for biocomputational approaches in structural biology and proteomics, chemistry, drug and immunotherapeutics design.  Investigators are directed to the summary of the software library available to UAMS investigators in addition to the Web based servers in structural proteomics.  Various locales on the UAMS campus that include the ACRC and UAMS Biomedical Visualization Center hosts a series of Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) computing workstations interconnected via a high-speed network to a multiprocessor (8 processor) SGI origin 300 located in the UAMS Computer Center.