The Vegetable & Fruit Improvement Center has core unit laboratories available to and used by the VFIC research faculty, staff and students to accomplish the “Farm to Lab Bench” research.  The units include:

• Plant Biotechnology Core Unit

• Phytochemical and Nutrient Analysis Core Unit

• Bioactive Molecules Core Unit

• Biological Activity Unit

The equipment used in the core-labs for experimental purposes is :

1. Fourier transform Nuclear Magnetic resonance (FT-NMR) spectrometer (400 MHz) (JEOL, Peabody, MA) with broadband, inverse probe, temperature controller and auto tune.

2. GC-MS-DSQ II Single Quadrupole spectrometer consists of autosampler, GC and quadrupole mass spectrometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Waltham, MA).  

3. Six HPLC systems with binary and quaternary pumps, auto samplers, UV-VIS detectors, diode array detector, RI detector, fluorescence detector and data collection systems (Perkim Elmer, Waters and Agilent)

4. Waters Preparative HPLC system

5. Two Gas chromatographs equipped with FID and sulfur detectors

6. Supercritical fluid extractor.

7. Five Rotary evaporators.

8. Flash Chromatography.

9. Oxygen radical  absorbance capacity (ORAC) instrument.

10. Refrigerated and Table top Centrifuges.

11. Cell counter.

12. Imaging system.

13. CO2 Incubator for cell culture studies, Spectrophotometers.

14. Specially designed laboratory with a fume hood which provides protection from  the solvents, Fume hood, balances (chemical and table-top).

15. Samples preparation equipments: Polytron homogenizers, Blenders, Ultrasonic  cleaner, Vortex mixer, Centrivap cold trap, Vacuum pumps, O2/CO2 analyzer,  stirrer-heater, Auto-diluter.

16. Two 18 liter freeze drier systems, pH meter, water baths.

17. Circulative water baths, shaker, drying oven, autoclave, -80 degreeC (4)  freezer, -20 degreeC freezers (7) and refrigerators (5).