ANZAC Research Institute Facilities
Our building
The Institute's state-of-the-art building creates a bright and pleasant working environment that aims to integrate work and social interaction between the scientists. The innovative design emphasizing modular and flexible elements has become a standard for economy and efficiency in modern biological sciences laboratory. Our design featured at industry seminars and has been adopted for redevelopment of the University of Sydney's Medical Foundation building. All the Institute's efforts aim to obtain similar recognition in leadership and innovation.
The building covers 2100 m2 and includes an office block, animal facility and laboratory block. The office block includes research student and scientist carrels each fitted with data ports, library/reading room with hot-desk computers, all standard office and communications facilities and staff room with full kitchen facilities opening onto a courtyard with barbeque facilities.
Virtual tour
A display of some of the Institute's laboratory equipment, scientest and students at work, and other aspects of the Institutes day-to-day operation is shown in a series of images in the "Virtual tour" presentation.
Link here to view the Virtual Tour presentation.
Laboratory Block
Layout
The laboratory block contains 4 large laboratories (175 m2) each with peninsular bench orientation forming 4 separate bays plus additional flow space. Each laboratory has its own offices, storeroom, fume cabinet, access to walk-in cold (4 C) and freezer (-20 C) rooms and hot (30 or 37 C) room, and a side-laboratory.
Features
The laboratories feature a modular, open layout with strong natural light making a particularly bright and attractive work environment; a design featured at specialist construction industry seminars as state-of-the-art for modern flexible and cost-efficient wet laboratories. Between the laboratories is a corridor linking 8 rooms housing the common usage, core facilities. These include image analysis/stereology inverted microscopes, confocal microscope, flow cytometer/sorter, high pressure liquid chromatography with mass spectrometer, real-time and conventional PCR thermal cyclers, fluorometer, spectrophotometer, radioactivity (?, ?) and luminescence counter as well as tissue culture facilities, histological preparation and radioactive room facilities.
The heavy equipment room is fitted with enhanced air-conditioning, 3 phase and 15 amp power and is sound and vibration-isolated from the main laboratories for environmental protection. The whole Institute is provided with high-grade copper cabling for data and communications with direct on-line access to the University of Sydney high speed broad-band network.
Animal facilities
The intramural animal facility, the Molecular Physiology Unit (MPU), is a PC2, SPF mouse facility with capacity for 6-7,000 mice housed in filter-top box cages changed under laminar flow isolation conditions. The MPU contains a microinjection laboratory with microinjection facilities for production of transgenic mice. In addition, an extramural conventional animal facility will be available from mid-2003 to house non-SPF mice, rats and rabbits and provide procedure rooms and operating facilities.
New facilities
In January 2009 Bernie Banton Centre was opened. Located next door to the ANZAC Research Institute, the Bernie Banton Centre houses the Asbestos Disease Research Institute (ADRI), a world’s first research facility dedicated to research into asbestos related diseases especially mesothelioma. This new facility has an extension to the ANZAC Research Institute laboratories on the upper floor and the two sibling institutes have signed a Memorandum of Understanding that will smoothly integrate their scientific operations. The combined expansion triples the research capacity on the Concord campus.
