Laboratory:
Prof. Contel is on the Faculty of the Chemistry Department of Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and occupies 1319 sq. feet in lab space in the Chemistry Department of Brooklyn College. The lab is surrounded by the labs of other synthetic chemists and there is significant collaboration and sharing of equipment between all members. The Contel’s lab is equipped with four large fume-hoods (one double), to be used for synthetic purposes.
Members of the Contel lab have extensive experience in synthetic inorganic/organometallic chemistry. In particular, most members of the lab are familiar with synthetic procedures under an inert (argon or nitrogen) atmosphere by the use of conventional Schenkl techniques (dual manifold) and a glove box. In addition, the members of the group are familiar with most common characterization techniques including 1D and 2D multinuclear NMR.
We set-up a separate cell culture room in 2014 (106 sq. ft.) with all the equipment necessary to perform cell death assays and basic mechanistic studies (cell culture hood, CO2 incubator, refrigerator/freezer/ microscopes, benchtop autoclave) as well as a centrifuge.
Pictures of the lab and lab members can be found at: http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/mariacontel/
Our laboratory is equipped to accomplish the approaches contained in the proposal and along with the other resources and our collaborator’s we will successfully complete the proposed project.
Computer:
Prof. Contel’ laboratory has six Desktop PCs, one Destop MacIntosh and four laser printers. Brooklyn College and CUNY maintains local computer support and provides all basic software (MS Office, ChemDraw, Photoshop, Acrobat, Endnote X3, etc). CUNY provides free electronic access to most relevant electronic journals. Our computers in the lab have direct access to data bases like SciFinder and we have Quartzy and Dropbox for internal lab management/data sharing purposes. ITS from Brooklyn college with several on-site full time and part time assistants are available for any technology or network related support.
Contel lab Website: http://userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/mariacontel/
Office:
Prof. Contel occupies a private office of approximately 162 sq. ft. and it has a desk, a big round table with chairs, file cabinets and three book shelves. There are three researchers’ offices of 90, 83, and 100 sq. ft. which have got two desks and two book shelves each. All offices are equipped with internet and phones. Researchers share this office space as well as desks within the lab. One shared departmental conference room and a library are available for group meetings.
CUNY-Brooklyn College through the Research Foundation also has its own fiscal staff support.
Other Resources:
Shared Facilities: The chemistry department houses an array of instruments of shared use which are described in the major equipment section. There is also a Molecular Interactions Facility at the Biology Department (run by Dr. Caleen Ramsook) which Contel’s group uses on a regular basis.
Intellectual/Collaborative Resources: Prof. Contel works with well-funded NIH/NSF investigators whose topics overlap with those of the present proposal (see table in next page). Her group uses instrumentation pertaining to the groups detailed in the table below from the departments of Chemistry and Biology. Moreover, Contel’s group is collaborating or has collaborated with Profs. Muth and Greer and she is the mentor (or part of the mentoring team) of Assistant Professors Guillermo Gerona-Navarro and Mariana Torrente. There are weekly research symposia at the Chemistry and Biology Departments and joint graduate student research presentations (chemistry and biology departments). In addition, we have easy access to seminars and colloquia all over New York City, including SUNY Downstate medical Center, which is a mile from campus. BC also holds an annual research retreat for all NIH and SCORE funded investigators as well as junior faculty and a Science day for the undergraduate students. This creates an ideal environment to favor collaborations and interdisciplinary research.
| Dept | PI | Title | Agency (Grant Number #) |
| Biology | Biais, Nicolas | Mechanobiology of Neisseria MicrocoloniesProgress in Understanding Type IV Plus Biogenesis | NIH (5SC2AI116566-02) NIH (1R56AI111767-01A)(University of Maryland) |
| Chemistry | Czajkowska, Aneta | Theranostic nanoparticles for dual modality cancer therapy | NIH (1SC2CA206194-01A1) |
| Chemistry | Davenport, Lesley | Confirmation and Multimeric Formation of G-Quadruplexed DNA: Effects of Ligand Interactions | NIH (5SC3GM095437-04) |
| Biology | Forlano, Paul | Collaborative Research: Mechanisms of Sound Source Localization Underlying an Ancestral Mode of Vertebrate Hearing | NSF (IOS-1456743) |
| Chemistry | Gallicchio, Emilio | S12-SSE: HIGH-PERFORMANCE SOFTWARE for Large-Scale Modeling of Binding Equilibria | NSF (ACI-1440665) |
| Chemistry | Gerona-Navarro, Guillermo | Chemical Probes Targeting Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Gene Repression | NIH (5SC2GM111231-02) |
| Chemistry | Greer, Alexander | Phase Separation of Reactive Oxygen with Multi-compartmented Sensitizers | NSF (CHE-1464975) |
| Biology | Ikui, Amy | Inhibition of DNA re-replication by cyclin/CDK and GSK-3 kinase in S. cerevisiae | NIH (4SC3GM105498-04) |
| Chemistry | Juszczak, Laura | Edge-on/face-on:Trp tripeptides model residue interactions in proteins | NIH (4SC3GM105562-04) |
| Biology | Lipke, Peter | A Role for Amyloids in Force-Dependent Activation of Cell Adhesion | NIH (5R01GM098616-04) |
| Chemistry | Murelli, Ryan | Biological Studies of alpha-HydroxytropolonesOptimization of alpha-hydroxytropolones as novel inhibitors of the HBV RNASEH | NIH (1SC1GM111158-01A1) (1R01AI12266901/eRS#37691)St. Lois University(NIH R01 – Sub-award)
|
| Biology | Muth, Theodore | Urban Microbial Community Dynamics: A Classroom Aproach | NSF (DUE-1323225) |
| Biology | Polle, Juergen | A Systems Biology and Pond Culture-based Understanding and Improvement of Metabolic Processes Related to Productivity in Diverse Microalgal Classes for Viable Biofuel ProductionCont. | DOE (DE-FOA-0001060/ 54573316) |
| Biology | Quadri, Luis | Small-Molecule Antibiotics Targeting Siderophore BiosynthesisBiosinthesis of Mycobacterial Dimycocerosate Ester Virulence Factors | NIH (1R01AI118224-01A1) NIH (1R15AI105884-01A1) |
| Chemistry | Torrente, Mariana P. | Epigenetics In Neurodegenerative Disease: Targeting Histone Modifications in ALS | NIH (4K22NS091314-02) |
Additionally Prof. Contel has access to resources and equipment to Nanoscience Initiative Research Laboratories from the Advance Science Research Center of CUNY through collaborator Prof. Rein Ulijn and to the Radiochemistry and Imaging Sciences Service and Nanotechnology center of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (including vivarium for in vivo studies) through collaborator Prof. Jason Lewis.
Access to the vivarium of City College (CUNY) is provided through collaborator Prof. Karen Hubbard.
EQUIPMENT:
Contel lab: The group has 3 laboratories with 4 fume hoods (1 double) equipped with dual manifolds and Edwards high vacuum-pumps to be used for synthetic purposes.The group has got a MBraun Unilab (2000/780) double glove box to work under inert atmosphere and an XPS solvent purification system for 7 solvents. The labs are equipped with an OAKTON pH/conductivity meter, four 4-digit scales, two ovens, a safety refrigerator and safety cabinets for flamamble solvents. In addition, there is a GC (Shimazdu) cromatograph and a High Pressure Reactor (Parr) to perform catalytic reactions. The group has also a cell culture room equipped with a Thermo Scientific 1300 Series Class II, Type A2 Biological Safety Cabinet; a Fisher Scientific™ Micromaster™ II Microscope; a 4/-20oC THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC / REVCO RCRF252A14 freezer/refrigerator; a Eppendorf 5810R Centrifuge; a Eppendorf micro centrifuge; a Forma™ Steri-Cycle™ CO2 Incubator; a Precision 180-Series Water Bath incubator; a Life Technologies dry transfer system for western blots; an Invitrogen Gel electrophoresis system; a Tuttnauer Autoclave-Steam Sterilizer bench-top autoclave; a 37o C Symphony Gravity Conversion General Incubator.
Chemistry Department– CUNY Brooklyn College Chemistry Department houses a variety of instruments some of them needed to carry out the proposed research project, including:
(1) Bruker Avance 400 MHz NMR spectrometer;
(2) Varian Mercury 200 MHz NMR spectrometer;
(3) Fisher Scientific programmable isotemp muffle furnace;
(4) Shimadzu-17A autosampler capillary gas chromatograph equipped with a flame ionization detector;
(5) Perkin Elmer 200 series HPLC equipped with an LC 250 pump, a C18 column and a diode array detector;
(6) Agilent 6220 Time-of-Flight LC-MS equipped with 1200 series LC system (Binary pump, Diode array detector, degasser and auto sampler) and ESI and multimode source;
(7) Varian 2100T gas chromatograph coupled with Varian 3900 mass spectrometer equipped with ion trap source;
(8) Hitachi UV-VIS U-2001 instrument with Peltier temperature controller, and a Hi-Tech stopped flow diode array spectrophotometer;
(9) Microcal VP-ITC calorimeter;
(10) Six processor (Itanium2) unix based workstation system for computational studies;
(11) Agilent Technologies 6890N GC/MS instrument with a 5973 Mass Selective Detector (MSD) and a HP-5MS column and autosampler with a Tekmar-Dohrmann Velocity XPT (purge and trap) sample concentrator;
(12) FTIR: Nicolet 6700 FTIR Spectrometer equipped with an MCTA detector and a diffuse reflectance accessory;
(13) PTI Spectrofluorometer equipped with LPS-220B and MD-5020
(14) Bruker E500 X-band EPR.
(15) Diode lasers emitting at 437 and 532 nm coupled to fiber optic cables;
(16) New Wave Nd:YAG Q-switched laser (~4 ns FWHM, 3 mJ/pulse) with harmonic generators for 1064, 532, and 355 nm excitation;
(17) Rayonet reactor with 254, 312, 350, and 450‑nm bulbs;
(18) LeCroy wavesurfer oscilloscope with plugins;
(19) Applied Detector Corporation ultra-sensitive cooled Ge singlet oxygen detector (403L);
(20)75-W Xenon Model L-201 Arc lamp (Photon Technology International) focused on a tunable monochromator to obtain monochromatic light;
(21) Olympus Digital Camera DP20 equipped with 2.01 megapixels image sensor;
(22) Perkin-Elmer DSC-7 differential scanning calorimeter.
Molecular Interactions Core Facility (Biology Department)-This CORE facility which Contel’s group uses on a regular basis (instruments 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6) and which will be used for the proposed project hosts the following equipment: 1) A Fuji Imager; 2) a BD Accuri™ C6 Flow Cytometer; 3) Fluorimeter; 4) a Surface Plasmon Resonance; 5) a Confocal Microscope; 6) a Chirascan Circular Dichroism Spectrophotometer equipped with a thermostated cuvette holder and 7) a Liquid Scintillation Analyzer. In addition we use on a regular basis a BioTek ELx808 absorbance microplate reader available at the laboratory of Prof. Theodore R. Muth (Biology Department).
Other CUNY available equipment– Equipment located at other CUNY campuses [Hunter College (HC) and College of Staten Island (CSI)] will be used by Contel’s group. Facilities that are readily available at HC and CSI include: a Varian Unity 600 MHz NMR, a 500 MHz Varian Unity Plus NMR, a JEOL GX-400 400MHz NMR, a Hewlett-Packard 1000 electrospray/LC/MSD instrument, and an X-ray crystallography facility.