Facilities, equipment and other resources

 01. Bio Nano Interface Laboratory at Lehigh University

 02. Lehigh’s Bioengineering and Biology core facilities

 03. Cleanroom facility at Lehigh Center for Photonics and Nanoelectronics (CPN)

 04. High-Performance Computing (HPC) facility

 05. Facilities at Lehigh Valley Hospital

Bio nano interface lab

Dr. Liu’s lab has a well-equipped lab space including a 450 sqft main lab (Sinclair 326) and a 230 sqft cell culture room with biological safety cabinets (Sinclair 326A).

Equipments
  • Two cell culture hoods and three cell incubators
  • Three Harvard Apparatus PhD 2000 programmable syringe pumpsAgilent Arbitrary Waveform Generator, Digital DC sourcemeter
  • Nikon Eclipse TE2000 inverted fluorescence microscope
  • Hitachi TM 1000 scanning electron Microscope
  • Electrophysiology rig (including Newport MD-285 micromanipulator, Sutter Instrument ROE-200 Multi-Manipulator Controller, Warner Instrument SF-77B Perfusion Fast-Step, Automatic Temperature Controller, VC-6 six channel Valve Controller, Fluor Mechanic FV-10 pumps, Sutter Instruments Lambda 10-B microprocessor-controlled filter wheel, Intracellular Imaging 175 Watt Xenon Light Source, Axon Instruments 1322A 16-bit data acquisition system, Multiclamp 700B current and voltage clamp, TMC Vibration table, and Photometric coolsnap HQ2 camera)
  • Centrifuge, hot plate, refrigerators, freezers, PH meters, and analytical balances
  • Sutter Instrument P-97 Micropipette Puller, Narishige MF-830 Microforge
  • PLAS LABS Glove box for the manipulation of chemicals and devices within a closed environment.
  • AirClean Systems ventilated hood box for PDMS device fabrication.
  • Milling machine
  • Dyne-A-Mite surface plasma treater
  • Keyence Digital Microscope VHX-600
  • Autoclave MFMK models
  • Ultrasonic Cleaner
  • Model 10 Lab Oven
  • Air Clean 600 PCR Workstation
  • PLAS LABS Glove Chamber
  • Omnicure Series 1500 and Olympus SZ30 Microscope
  • XIMEA CB120MG High Speed Camera which is1000 fps at 1920×1080 resolution, up to 10000 fps at lower resolution

BIOENGINEERING AND BIOLOGY CORE FACILITIES

As a core faculty in Lehigh’s Bioengineering Department, Dr. Liu’s group has access to Lehigh’s Bioengineering and Biology core facilities. Dr. Liu’s group also has a bench space in Lehigh University’s Health Research Hub (HRH), which provides integrated and shared facilities for cell/tissue culture, soft lithography or microfabrication, and characterization. The current available core technologies at HRH are a BSL-2+ cell/tissue facility, a soft lithography or microfabrication facility with spin-coating, plasma etching with RIE, and a characterization facility with profilometry, atomic force and confocal microscopy, particle sizing, small angle X-ray scattering(SAXS), and optical coherence tomography(OCT).

Equipments
  • Zeiss LSM510 Meta confocal microscope
  • Nikon Sweptfield confocal system
  • BD FACS Canto II flow cytometer
  • MMI laser microdissection
  • Agilent G2505B microarray scanner
  • Agilent 2100 Bioanalyser
  • Labsystem multiscan
  • Ascent microplate reader
  • Applied Biosystems real time PCR machine
  • Beckman PF2D proteomics lab
  • Fluoroskan Ascent FL fluorometer/luminometer
  • Pharmacia LKB Ultrascan LS laser densitometer
  • Leica ultratome
  • Bright OFT 5000 cryostat
  • Numerous centrifuges and ultracentrifuges, and cell culture facilitie

 

Cleanroom facility at CPN

Dr. Liu’s group has access to Lehigh’s Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology as well as Lehigh’s Optical Center, which have a large range of state-of-the-art instruments and equipment for fabrication and characterization, maintained by dedicated staff. The ever increasing list of equipment includes AFM, electron microscopes, focused ion beam and e-beam writers, nanoimprinter, mask aligners, hot embossing system, high-resolution positioners, and standard silicon fabrication apparatus. These affiliations have provided unlimited access to a large array of the state of the art equipment for the successful execution of the proposed project and related activities.

Equipments
  • Karl Suss MA-6, BA-6 Aligner
  • Karl Suss MJB-3 Aligner
  • Reynolds Tech Developer Wet Bench
  • Solitec Programmable Spinner
  • Plasma-Therm Apex SLR ICP Etcher
  • Adixen I Speeder 100
  • Technics 800 RIE
  • Plasma Therm
  • Adixen AMS 100 I-Speeder
  • Denton DV 602 Sputtering System
  • Eddy SC 20 E-beam Evaporator
  • Indel E-beam Evaporator
  • Mission Peak MP 100S
  • Plasmatherm 790 PECVD
  • Tencor Alpha-Step D-500 Stylus Profiler
  • Plasmatherm 790 PECVD
  • Allied Techprep Polishing
  • Isomet 4000
  • Kulicke & Soffa Wire Bonder
  • Nikon MM – 60

High-Performance Computing (HPC) facility

The Liu’s group currently has one GPU-based, 24-processor, 3 GHz, Dual Nvidia GTX 1080Ti workstation, one 12-processor, 3.33 GHz Dell Xeon workstation, one Dell Workstation with Dual NVIDIA Quadro GPU, and four 4-processor, 3.2 GHz HP workstations. The computational-extensive modeling work will be performed using the parallel computing clusters at the High-Performance Computing center (HPC) at Lehigh University. In particular, the MEM department purchased the Corona cluster with 1000+ cores and maintained by HPC center which Liu’s group has high priority access. Dr. Liu’s group also has access to a few national supercomputing clusters on XSEDE (COMET, PSC, TACC, NCSA etc).Design and imaging processing software in Liu’s lab includes ANSYS, Comsol Multiphysics, L-EDIT, AutoCad, CorelDraw, Simpleware ScanIP/ScanFE, etc.

Facilities at Lehigh Valley Hospital

Lehigh Valley Hospital, Inc. (LVH) is a not-for-profit academic community hospital which is legal entity of Lehigh Valley 

Facilities in lehigh valley hospital and cancer institute

Lehigh Valley Hospital, Inc. (LVH) is a not-for-profit academic community hospital which is legal entity of Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) and serves as a sub-applicant organization. In response to community needs, LVHN has grown to become the largest health care provider in the Lehigh Valley region with eight not-for-profit hospital campuses in Pennsylvania.  The network includes health centers caring for communities in six counties; numerous primary and specialty care physician practices throughout the region; pharmacy, imaging and lab services; and preferred provider services through Valley Preferred. LVHN is the largest employer in the region with approximately 18,000 employees and 1,700 licensed beds.  In 2016, LVHN provided $441 million in uncompensated care to the community.

 

LVHN Cancer Institute is located in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, approximately 90 miles from New York City, 60 miles from Philadelphia, and 20 miles from the New Jersey border. Mid-sized cities within this region are Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton. Allentown is the third largest city in Pennsylvania.  According to the 2011-2015 American Community Survey, Allentown is home to 120,443 people. Of this population, 47% identify as Latino, 14% as Black/African American, and 2% as Asian. Another 4.6% identify as bi/multi racial. Overall, 26.5% of Allentown residents live in poverty compared to a state average of 13.2%.

 

LVH provides a full range of cancer screening, diagnostic, treatment, rehabilitation and continuing care services at three locations: the John and Dorothy Morgan Cancer Center at LVH-Cedar Crest, the Cancer Center at LVH-Muhlenberg and the Health Center at Bangor. Programs include clinical research through the clinical trials office, a variety of psychosocial supportive care and outreach programs, and home care and hospice services. There is a general tumor board, and specialty tumor board conferences are held for five cancer sites. Interdisciplinary breast services include self-referral mammography, minimally invasive breast biopsies and a breast cancer consultation service. Oncology-related education and training for health care professionals are also provided. As a member of the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Alliance, LVH provides patients with greater access to the newest and most effective standards of cancer care.

 

LVH provides treatment for gynecological cancers that gives patients the best chance for recovery and possibly preserved fertility. Treatment is provided by fellowship-trained gynecologic oncologists, at LVH’s cancer centers. LVH uses a multidisciplinary team approach to gynecologic cancers. Patients see an entire team of specialists in the same day. Team members review every aspect of the patient’s case and offer the best treatment recommendation. This approach is most effective in aggressively and successfully treating cancer. Patients are also connected to a caring support team that includes financial counselors, social workers, genetic counselors and others who will be present throughout the patient’s cancer journey.

 

LVH’s Department of Interpreter Services offers support to patients and clinical teams through use of on-site interpreters and technology.

 

The scientific environment in which this project will be done will contribute to the probability of success. The Lehigh Valley Health Network Office of Research and Innovation (NORI) provides resources, infrastructure, tools, and managerial support to Principal Investigators and their teams as they pursue, execute, and deliver high-quality interventions. NORI facilitates the standardization, coordination, and delivery of administrative activities that must occur prior to the execution of a research project; the detailed financial and regulatory management activities that occur throughout the conduct of a research project; and the oversight of the personnel working with the Site PI in order to ensure the proper execution of research. The Office of Grants provides support to LVHN colleagues and teams wanting to apply for or manage awards. LVHN has been successful in securing and managing federal, state, and private grants.